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THE 

SOUTH: 

A TOUR OF ITS BATTLE-FIELDS AND RUINED CITIES, 

A JOURNEY THROUGH TIIE DESOLATED STATES, 
AND TALKS WITH THE PEOPLE; 

BEIXO A DESCRIPTION OP THE • 

PRESENT STATE OP THE COUNTRY — ITS AGRICl'LTURE — RAILROADS — BUSINESS AND 

FINANCES — GIVING AN ACCOUNT OP CONFEDERATE MISRULE, AND OF THE 

SUFFERINGS, NECESSITIES AND MISTAKES, POLITICAL VIEWS, 

SOCIAL CONDITION AND PROSPECTS, OF THE ARISTOCRACY, 

MIDDLE CLASS, POOR WHITES AND 

NEGROES. 

INCLUniXG VISITS TO PATRIOT GRAVES AND REBEL PRISONS — AND EM- 
BRACING SPECIAL NOTES ON THE FREE LABOR SYSTEM — EDUCATION 

AND MORAL ELEVATION OF THE FREEDMEN ALSO, ON PLANS OF 

RECONSTRUCTION AND INDUCEMENTS TO EMIGRATION. 

FROM PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS AND EXPERIENCE DURING MONTHS OF SOUTHERN TRAVKLt , 

By J. T. TROWBRIDGE, 

AUTHOR OF "neighbor JACKWOOD," " CUDJO's CAVE," ETC. 



ILLUSTRATED. 

SOLD BY AGENTS ONLY. 



HARTFORD, CONN.: 
PUBLISHED BY L. STEBBINS. 

• 1 860. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S66, 

Bt L. 8TEBBINS, 

In the Clerk's Office of the Uisti-iot Court of the United States tot tli« 
District of Connecticut 



PREFACE. 

In the summer of 1865, and in the following winter, I 
made two visits to the South, spending four months in eight 
of the principal States which had lately been in rebellion. 
I saw the most noted battle-fields of the war. I made ac- 
quaintance with officers and soldiers of both sides. I followed 
in the track of the destroying armies. I travelled by rail- 
road, by steamboat, by stage-coach, and by private convey- 
ance ; meeting and conversing with all sorts of people, from 
high State officials to " low-down " whites and negroes ; en- 
deavoring, at all times and in all places, to receive correct 
impressions of the country, of its inhabitants, of the great 
contest of arms just closed, and of the still greater contest 
of principles not yet terminated. 

This book is the result. It is a record of actual observa- 
tions and conversations, free from fictitious coloring. Such 
stories as were told me of the war and its depredations would 
have been spoiled by embellishment ; pictures of existing con- 
ditions, to be valuable, must be faithful ; and what is now 
most desirable, is not hypothesis or declamation, but the light 
of plain facts upon the momentous question of tlie hour, 
which must be settled, not according to any political or sec- 
tional bias, but upon broad grounds of Truth and Eternal 
Right. 

I have accoi'dingly made my narrative as ample and as 
hterally faithful as the limits of these pages, and of my own 
opportunities, would allow. Whenever practicable, I have 



iv PREFACE. 

stepped aside and let the people I met speak for themselves. 
Notes taken on the spot, and nnder all sorts of circum- 
stances, — on horseback, in jolting wagons, by the firelight 
of a farm-house, or negro camp, sometimes in the dark, or in 
the rain, — have enabled me to do this in many cases with 
absolute fidelity. Conversations which could not be reported 
in this way, were written out as soon as possible after they took 
place, and while yet fresh in my memory. Idiomatic pecu- 
liarities, which are often so expressive of character, I have 
reproduced without exaggeration. To intelligent and candid 
men it was my habit to state frankly my intention to publish 
an account of my journey, and then, with their permission, to 
jot down such views and facts as they saw fit to impart. 
Sometimes I was requested not to report certain statements of 
an important nature, made in the glow of conversation : these, 
not without regret, I have suppressed ; and I trust that in no 
mstance have I violated a confidence that was reposed iji me. 
I may add that the conversations recorded are generally of 
a representative character, being selected from among hundreds 
of such ; and that if I have given seemingly undue prominence 
to any subject, it has been because I found it an absorbing and 
miiversal topic of discussion. 

May, 1866. 

THE EKD. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. — The Start. 

HarrisburfT. — First Indications of War. — neininiscences of Lee's Invasion. — On to 
Gettysburg. — The Town and its Inhabitants. — The Hero of Gettysburg. .Page 17 

CHAPTER II. — TiiK FiKLD of Gettysburo. 

Cemeftn- Ilill. — Pivot of the I'.attle and of the War. — Gulp's Hill. — Rock Creek. 

— f'ciTioterv at Sunset. — .John Hums. — The Peach Orchard. — Devil's Den and 
Little Jiouiid Top. — Round Top. — Meade's Head-Quarters. — Woman's Hero- 
ism and Humanity. — A Soldier and his Benefactor. — Harvest of Bullets 20 

CHAPTER III. — A Re.mixiscence of Ciiamuersburg. 

Quiet Country. — Ruins of Chambersburg. — Burning of the Town. — Flight of the 
Inhabitants. — Escape of the Raiders. — Death of Three Rebels. — Homeless Inhal)- 
itants. — State Appropriation for their Relief. — No Loss without Gain 34 

CHAPTER IV. — South Mountain. 

Hagerstown. — Valley of the Antietam. — Boonsboro'. — The Rebels in Maryland. 

— View of the Mountain. — The Ascent. — Scene of General Reno's Death. — Reb- 
els buried in a Well. — A Mountaineer's Story. — View of Catoctin Valley. — Strong 
Rebel Position. — Patriot Graves. — Antietam Valley at Sunset 40 

CHAPTER v. — The Field of Antietam. 

Rebel Line of Retreat. — Keedysville. — Brick Church Hospital. — Porter and his 
Reserves. — Banks of the Antietam. — Scenes at the Straw-Stacks. — Unfortunate 
Fanners. — Hospital Cemetery. — The Com Field. — The Old Ploughman. — A 
Lesson for Vanit}^ — .\ Soldier's Name. — The Dunker Church. — Sharpsburg. 

— Shelter from the Rain. — Southern Pronunciation. — Burnside's Bridge. — An- 
cient and Modern Heroes. — Antietam National Cemetery. — The Battle 44 

CHAPTER VI. — Down the River to Harper's Ferry. 

Search for a Vehicle. — "Mr. Bennerhalls." — Mr. Benner without the "halls." — 
Leaving Sharpsburg. — Mountain Scenery. — Capt. Speaker's Narrative. — Sur- 
render of Harper's Ferry. — Escape of Twenty-two Hundred Cavalry. — Capture 
of Rebel Wagon Train. — Morning in Greencastle. — Arrival at the Eerry 57 

CHAPTER VIL — Around Harper's Ferry. 

River and Mountain Scener}-. — Marj-land Heights. — John Brown's Engine-House. 

— Reminiscence of .John Brown. — ^"Political Inconsistency. — Negro from Shenan- 
doah Valley. — Folly of Secession 64 

CHAPTER VIII. — A Trip to Ciiarlestown. 

Railroad Passengers. — A Desolated Countn-. — Farmers and Land. — A Dilapidated 
Town. — Meeting an Acquaintance. — Boarding-Houpe Fare. — People and the 
Government Policy. — Charlestown .Jail and Court-House. — .John Brown's Trial.* — 
" His Soul Marching On." — A One-armed Confederate. — John Brown's Gallows. 

— Scene from the ScafiFold. — The Church and its Uses 69 



VI TABLE OF CONTEi^TS. 

CHAPTER IX. — A Scene at the White House. 
"Washington. — A Crowd of Pardon-Seekers. — President's Reception 75 

CHAPTER X. — Bull Run. 

From Alexandria to Manassas. — Manassas .Junction. — " Overpowered," but not 

Wliipped. — Ambulance Wagon. — The Driver and the Roads. — Scene of the 

First Bull Run. — Soldiers' Monument. — Luncheon in the Woods. — Scene of the 

f Second Bull Run. — The Monument. — Groverton. — The two Battles and their 

Lessons. — The Stone House. — Miscegenated Cider. — Virginia Negroes 81 

CHAPTER XI. —Visit to Mount Veknon. 

Down the Potomac. — Landing at Mt. Vernon. — A Throng of Pilgrims. — Tomb of 
Washington. — Character of Washington. — Mansion and Out-houses. — Girl at 
the Wash-tub. — Washington's Well. — Shade-Trees. — AVithin the Mansion. — 
Relics. — The Portico. — Washington's Love of Home. — Thunder-storm 91 

CHAPTER XIL — "State Pride." 

Acquia Creek. — RaUroad and Stage-Coaches. — View of Fredericksburg. — Crossing 
the Rappannock. — Ruins of the Town. — "A Son of Virginia." — " State Pride " 
and "Self-Conceit." — Virginia and South Carolina. — Back in the Union. — 
Down at the Hotel. — Another Name for State Pride 100 

CHAPTER XIII. — The Field of Feedekicksburg. 

The Situation. — The Stone Wall of History. — A Rebel Eye-witness. — Stripping 
the Dead. — Strange Breastworks. — Fidelity of a Dog. — Gen. Lee's " Human- 
ity." — Private Cemetery. — The Marye House. — Negro who did n't see the 
Fight. — Southern Consistency. — Dissolution of the Rebel Army. — The Buried 
Dead. — House of Washington's Mother. — Mary Washington's Monument. — The 
Lacy House. — Scene from the Windows. — Storming of Fredericksburg 106 

CHAPTER XIV. — To Chancellorsville. 

'Lijali and his Buggy. — A Three-Dollar Horse. — Trade in Soldiers' Clothing. — 
Small Farmers. — Right Ignorant but Right Sharp. — Sedgwick's Retreat. — Farms 
and Crops. — Views of Emancipation. — Poor Whites and Niggers. — The Man 
that killed Harrow. — Along the Plank-Road. — Tales of the Old Times. — Chancel- 
lorsville Farm. — What was under the Weeds. — Bones for the Bone-Factory. — 
Chancellorsville Burying-Ground. — Death of Stonewall Jackson 114 

CHAPTER XV. — The Wilderness. 

Days of Anxiety. — Inflexible Spirit of the People. — Locust Grove. — The Wilder- 
ness Church. — Relics of the Battle. — Skeletons above Ground. — Wilderness 
Cemeter}'. — A Summer Shower. — The Wounded in the Fire. — The Rainbow..l23 

CHAPTER XVI. — SpoTTSYLVANLi. Court -House. 

Elijah " Cut." — Richard " H." Hicks. — Poor Whites and the War. — Dead Men's 
Clothes. — A "Heavy Coon Dog." — Traces of the Battle. — View of the Court- 
House. — Grant's Breastworks. — County Clerk. — Whites and Blacks in the 
County. — Ignorance of the Lower Classes. — The Negi'o " Fated " 129 

CHAPTER XVII. — The Field of Spottsylvania. 

The Tavern-Keeper's Relics. — A Union Officer's Opinions. — The Landlord's Corn- 
field. — Rebel and Yankee Troops. — Scene of the Decisive Conflict. — Graves of 
Spottsjdvania. — Women " Chincapinnin." — Leaves from a Soldier's Testament. .137 

CHAPTER XVIIL — "On to Richmond." 

A Bubble Vanished. — Desolate Scenery. — Virginia and Massachusetts. — Ashton. — 
Suburbs. — Northern Men in Richmond. — Appearance of the City 143 

CHAPTER XIX. — The Burnt District. 
Ruins of Richmond. — Why the Rebels burnt the City. — Panic of the Inhabitants. — 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. vii 

Origin of the Fire. — Conflicting Opinions. — Fire of December, 1811. — Eebuild- 
ing. — Negroes at Work. — Colored Laborer. — Hasty Reconstruction 147 

~CKSPTEir XX. — LiBBY, Castle Thunder, and Belle Isle. 

Libby Prison. — Castle Thunder. — James River. — Manchester Bridge. — Negroes 
with Bundles. — Old Negro's Story. — Belle Island. — Talk with a Boatman. — 
Hatred of the Confederacy. — SkiS" to Brown's Island. — Father and Daughter. .153 

CHAPTER XXI. —Feeding the Destitute. 

Destitute Ration Tickets. — White and Black Mendicants. — Spirit of Rapacity. — 
Certificates. — Spm-ious Cases. — American Union Commission IGl 

CHAPTER XXII. — The Union Men of Richmond. 

One of tlie Twenty-one. — Ilis Account of Confederate Times. — Rebel Fast Davs. — " 

Insurrection of Women. — Mr. L 's Story. — Colonel Dahlgreu's Body. — Sfight 

Work for Union Men. — Story of Jlr. W" . — In Salisbury Prison. — Union 

Women. — Minor Prisons. — " One Honest Yankee." — Books tor the Prisoners. — 
White and his Mule Cart. — Scene in a Prison Yard. — The Premises by Moon- 
light. — Not a "Love Affair." — Escape of Two Prisoners. — A Halter Case. — 
Running the Lines to Butler. — Partiality to Traitors. — Union League 166 

CHAPTER XXIIL— Markets and Farming. 

Mixed Population of Richmond. — Market Carts. — Scene at the Stalls. — Vegetable 
Gardens. — Experience of a Jersey Farmer. — Farms for Sale 178 

CHAPTER XXIV. — In and around Richmond. 

St. John's Church and Patrick Henry. — St. Paul's and JeflF. Davis. — State and 
Confederate Capitol. — Negro Auction-Rooms. — Hollywood and Oakwood Ceme- 
teries. — General Lee's Head-Quarters Wagon. — Rebel Conscript Camp. — A 
Champion of Slavery. — A Rebel. — Secesl; Song 182 

CHAPTER XXV. — People and Politics. 

A Conservative L^nion Man. — A Confederate Soldier's Opinions. — Female Seces- 
sionists. — Confederate Soldiers and the Ladies. — "Bomb-proof" Situations. — 
Governor Pierpoint. — Advantages to Northern Business Men. — State Debt and 
Finances. — Virginia Enterprise. — Coal Mines on the James. — Speech of a Played- 
Out Politician. — A Rival Candidate. — Political Views. — New Men 187 

CHAPTER XXVL — Fortifications. —Dutch G'ap. — Fair Oaks. 

Ride with Major K . — Forts and Earthworks. — Winter Quarters of the Army 

of the James. — Affair at Laurel Hill. — At New-Market Heights. — Gallop across 
the -Country. — Butler's Canal. — Origin of the Name "Dutch Gap." — Cox's 
House. — Out on the Nine-Mile Road. — Fair Oaks Station. — Seven Pines. — 
Charge of Sickles's Brigade. — Savage's Station. — Two Sundays 198 

CHAPTER XXVII. — In and about Petersburg. 

From Richmond to the "Cockade City." — Evening with Judge . — Story of 

Two Brothers. — Shelling of Petersburg. —Black Population. — Ride i^ith Colonel 

E . — The "Crater." — Forts Hell and Damnation. — Forts Morton and Sted- 

man. — " Petersburg Express." — A Beautiful but Silent City. — Signal Tower.. 205 

CHAPTER XXVIII. — James River and Fortress Monroe. 

City Point. —Landmarks of Famous Events. — Hotel under the Fortress. — Jeff. 
Davis's Private Residence. — Circuit of the Ramparts. — Pardoned Rebel. .215 

CHAPTER XXLX.— About Hasipton. 

Burning of Hampton. — Freedmen's Settlements. — Visits to the Freedmen 219 

CHAPTER XXX. — A General View of Virginia. 
Fertility. — Natural Advantages. — Old Fields. — Hills and Valleys. — Products. — 



7 



viii TABLE OF COKTENTS. 

Value of Land. — jManufactures. — Oj'Sters. — Common Schools. ~ Freedmen's 

Schools. — Negro Population. —Old Prejudice. — Wages. —Negroes in Tobacco 

^Factories. — Freedmen's Bureau. — Secession. — Railroads. — Finances. — Pros- 

pecfs." ~rrr.v....~. 224 

CHAPTER XXXI. — The "Switzerland of America." 

East Tennessee. — Home of President Johnson. — Knoxville. — An Old Nigger- 
Dealer. — Table-Talk. — East Tennesseeans and Niggers. — Neighborhood Feuds. 

— Persecution and Retaliation. — Story of a Loyal Refugee 237 

CHAPTER XXXn. — East Tennessee Farmers. 

Description of the People. — " Domestic." — School-Fund and Schools. — Sects. — 

Farming. — Horses and Mules. — Grazing. — Want of a Market. — Products. — 

. Mines 243 

CHAPTER XXXIH.- In and about Chattanooga. 

View from Cameron Hill. — Mixed Population. — Post School. — Freedmen's Schools. 

— Freedmen. — Contraband Village. — Parade of a Colored Regiment 248 

CHAPTER XXXIV. — Lookout Moujs-tain. 

A Bag of Grist. — Ascent of the Mountain. — The General's Orderly. — View from 
Point Lookout. — " Battle in the Clouds." — " Old Man of the Mountain." 255 

CHAPTER XXXV. — The Soldiers' Cemetery. 
National Cemetery of Chattanooga. — The Cave. — Interring the Dead 260 

CHAPTER XXXVI. — Mission Ridge and Ciiickamauga. 

Storming the Ridge. — Rossville Gap. — A Drearj' Scene. — The " Deadenings." — 
Dyer P'arm. — Camp of Colored Soldiers. — African Superstition. — Disinterring 
the Dead. — The Blunder of Chickainauga. — General Thomas's Fight ^. . .263 

CHAPTER XXXVII. — From Chattanooga to Murfreesboro". 

Traces of Military Operations. — "Union Men." — Passing the Cumberland Moun- 
tains. — The Country. — Story of Two Brothers. — " Little Johnny Reb." — Rail- 
road Travel. — General Hazen's Head-Quarters. — Rebel Persecutions 270 

CHAPTER XXXVIIL — Stone River. 
Fortress Rosecrans. — Rebel and Union Lines. — McCook Surprised. — Round For- 
est. — Cemeterj' of Hazen's Brigade. — New National Cemetery 275 

CHAPTER XXXIX. — The Heart of Tennessee. 

Nashville. — Cotton and Cotton Seed. — Battle of Nashville. — Legislature and Pol- 
itics. — Governor Brownlow. — Major-General Thomas. — On Freedmen. — Freed- 
men's Bureau. — Black and White' Industry. — Freedmen's Schools 279 

CHAPTER XL. — By Railroad to Corinth. 

Condition of Railroad. — Battle-Ground of Franklin. — Crossing the River at De- 
catur. — A Young South Carolinian. — Whipping a Negro. — A Night in the Cars. 

— Morning in Corinth. — " Mighty Particular." — The Corinthian Style. — Game. 

— Mr. M 'sFamilyand Servants. — Fate of a "Respectable Citizen." 290 

CHAPTER XLL — On Horseback from Corinth. 

Winter Morning in the Woods. — Stop at a Log-House. — An Old Lady's Mis- 
fortunes. — Old Lee's Story. — A Roadside Encounter 297 

CHAPTER XLIL — Zeek. ' 

Talk by the Way. — Mistletoe. — Farm-Houses. — Route of the Armies. — Beaure- 
gard's Bivouac. — Across Owl Creek. — Zeek's Home 303 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. ix 



CHAPTER XLIir. — Zeek's Family. 

A Tennessee Farm-House. — The Fanner. — The Kitclieu. — Too well Ventilated 
by Half. — The Farmyard. — Mule-ren and Out-Buildings 306 

CHAPTER XLIV. — A Night in a Tennessee Fakm-House. 

Concerning Doors. — Talk by the Firelight. — Depredations of the Two Armies. — 
Hunting Conscripts. — Origin of the Name " Owl Creek." — Reminiscences of the 
Battle. — Smart Son-in-law. — Zeek Retires. — The Bridal Chamber 312 

CHAPTER XL v.— The Field of Siiiloh. 

Departure. — Bridal Home. — Before and After the Battle. — Hildebrand's Picket 
Line. — Graves in the Woods. — Shiloh Church. — Skeletons Rooted up by 
Swine. — Romance of the Widow Ray House. — Romance of a Bale of Uay. — 
Members of One Family. — Sheep Pasture. — The " Long Avenue." — Trenches 
of the Dead. — Pittsburg Landing. — General Prentiss's Disaster 321 

CHAPTER XLVI — Waii'ing fok the Train at Midnight. 
Mrs. M on SIaver>% — Hunting for the Railroad. — Negro Encampment 323 

CHAPTER XLVH. — Fkom Corinth to Memphis. 
West Tennessee. — Two Sides to the Picture. — Commerce of Memphis 3-32 

CHAPTER XLVHL — Fkeedmen's Schools and the Freedmen's Bureau. 

Freedmen in Memphis. — Colored Benevolent Societies. — Schools. — Officers of the 
Bureau. — Old Wrongs Righted. — Summary Justice. — Milly Wilson's Story. — 
Cases from Mississippi. — Business of the Bureau. — Suppressed Wills 336 

CHAPTER XLTX. — Down the Mississippi. 

A Mississippi Steamboat. — Passengers. — Supper. — Evening Amu5ements. — Steam- 
boat Race. — River and Shores. — Landings. — Captain and Colored Gentleman. — 
An A-wlul Thought. — Helena. — A Colored Soldier's Return. — Condition of the 
Levees. — Freshets. — Best Protected Plantations. — Negro Insurrections 3-17 

CHAPTER L. — In and about Vicksburg. 

Sight of the Town. — Yankee Canal. — Hills of Vicksburg. — Caves. — An Under- 
Ground Residence. — Bombardment. — Famine. — Ride to the Fortifications. — 
Grant and Pemberton Monument. — Sherman's Unsuccessful Assault. — Chickasaw 
Bayou. — Indian Mounds. — Fortifications below Vicksburg. — '' Will the Freed- 
men Work ? " 356 

CHAPTER LI. — Free Labor in Mississippi. 

Laborers defrauded of their Hire. — " Honesty " of a Planter. — Northern and South- 
ern IMaster. — Freedmen and Planters. — Furnishing Supplies. — Slave Labor on 
• Mr. P 's Plantation. — Overseers and Negroes. — Change at Christmas. . . .362 

CHAPTER LIL — A Reconstructed State. 

Ignorance of the Free-Labor Sj-stem. — Serf Code. — Freedmen in Civil Courts. — 
Convention and Legislature.— State Militia. — White and Black Offenders. — 
Persecution of Union Men. — A Pardoned Eebel. — Freedmen's Schools 369 

CHAPTER LIIL— A few Words about Cotton. 

Best Cotton Lands. —Anxiety of the Planter. — Fascination of the Culture. — North- 
ern Planters. — Estimate of Cost and Profits. — Prospect of Crop 379 

CHAPTER LIV.— Davis's Bend. — Gr^vntj Gulf. — Natchez. 

Home of Jeflf. Davis. — Colony of Paupers. — Other Farms on the Peninsula. — Suc- 
cess of the Freedmen. — Colored Courts. — Village of Grand Gulf. — The " Gulf." 
— Situation of Natchez.— Cargoes of Cottoa. — Talk with an Overseer 383 



X TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER LV. — The Lower Mississirpi. 

Used-up Deck Hands. — Toilsome Work and Brutal Treatment. — French Custom. 

— Steamboat Acquaintances. — Pay for Slaves. — Jim B and his Niggers. — 

" A Mountain Spout of a Woman." — Talk with an Arkansas Planter. — Louisiana 
Planters. — Deck Passengers. — Black Woman's Story. — French Inhabitants. — 
Creoles and Slaves. — Villages and Plantations. — Levees. — The River flowing on 
a Ridge. — Unavailable Swamps. — River Water. — River runs Up Hill 388 

CHAPTER LVL — The Crescent City. 

Midwinter at New Orleans. — French Quarter. — Anomalous Third Class. — Style 
of Building. — Levee. — Where the Cotton goes. — Shipment of Cotton during the 
War and since.— Freight of a Liverpool Steamer. — St. Charles Rotunda. — One 
of the Crowd. — His Scheme for making a Fortune. — His Opinion of the Plant- 
ers. — Northern Men in Louisiana. —Planters and Niggers. — Hard Overseers. — 

^ General Phil. Sheridan. — Military Division of the Gulf — Troops in Texas. — 
The Mexican Question. — The South to be Northernized. — Sheridan's Personal 
Appearance. — Governor Wells. — Deeds and Professions. — Mayor Kennedy. — 
On the Future of New Orleans and the South. — Street Railroads. — Property owned 

t by People of Color. — A Black and White Strike 397 

CHAPTER LVn. — Politics, Free Labor, and Sugar. 

Radical Union Men. — On the President's Policy. — On General Banks. — Gentle- 
man who had no Vote. — Newspapers. — General T. W. Sherman. — Rebel Militia. 

— Colored "Cavalry" Drilling. — Capital and Labor. — Louisiana Serf Code. — 
. /■ Planters and the Bureau. — Dependence of the Negroes. — Defrauded by Whites. — 

Independent Homes for the Freedmen. — Colored Schools. — Northern Men. — A 
Sugar Plantath>n.— Abandoned Parishes. — Sugar and Cotton. — Cane Planting. 

— Field of Cane in June. — A Sugar-Mill. — Sugar Crop. — White Laborer 406 

CHAPTER LVIIL — The Battle of Mobile Bay. 

Lake Ponchartrain. — Capture of the " Waterwitch." — Morning in the Gulf. — En- 
tering Mobile Bay. — Scene of Farragut's Fight. — A Poet in the Battle 415 

CHAPTER LIX. — Mobile. 

The Merchant Fleet. — Harbors on the Gulf. — Spanish Fort. — Obstructions in the 
Channel. — Up Spanish River. — The City. — The Great Explosion. — Busi- 
ness 420 

CHAPTER LX. — Alabama Planters. 

River Steamers. — Character of Alabamians. — One of the Despairing Class.— Mr. 

J 's Experience. — Mr. G 's Opinions. — Mr. H of Lowndes County.— 

Planters' Justice. — One of the Hopeful Class.— Agricultural Associations 423 

CHAPTER LXI. — Wilson's Raid. 
Shores of the Alabama. — Plantation Ploughs. — Author's Ignorance Enlightened.— 
Selma. — Ruins of the Town. — Chain-Gang. — Battle of Selma. — A Freedman'a 
Story. — Loyalty and Fidelity. — Negro Boy Arthur. — Raiders in Lowndes Coun- 
ty. — Planter's Wife and the Wine. — Track of Wilson's Cavalry 433 

CHAPTER LXIL — Notes on Alabama. 

Montgomery. — The Capitol. — Where the Confederate Egg was Hatched. — Men 
of the Back Country. — Small Fanners in the Legislature. — Original Secessionists 
and Union Men. —Young Man of Chambers County. — A Prisoner at Harrisburg. — 
Life among the Yankees. — Return Home. — Disloyalty of the People. — News- 
papers and Churches. — Northern and Southern Alabama. — Union RIen of Ran- 
dolph County. — Great Destitution. — Service of the Freedmen's Bureau. — Negro 
in Civil Courts. — Freedmen's Schools.— Cotton Stealing. — Prospect of Cotton 
Crop. — How to Hire the Freedmen. — All Sorts of Contracts.— Northern Men in 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. XI 

Alabama. — Topoffvaphy. — Tree Moss. — Best Cotton Lands. — Disadvantages. — 
Artesian Wells. — Ue^'iun of Small Farms. — Climate. — Common Schools. — First 
Cotton Crop. — Indian War. — Kailroads 441 

CHAPTER LXIII. — In and about Atlanta. 

Closing Battles of the War. — The Yankees at West Point. — Foggy Night at At- 
lanta. — City bv Daylight. — Colored Soldier's Widow. — Property Destroyed. — 
Religion a Nuisance. — Rebuilding. — Rents. — White and Black Refugees. — Ac- 
counts by Citizens. — Negro's Horse. — Jesse Wade, the Poor White; on Sher- 
man's Strategy; on Schools; on Reconstruction. — Nigger versus White Man.— 
Out-door Convention of Freed People. — Georgia Railroads and Banks 452 

CHAPTER LXIV. — Down in Middle Georgia. 

Last View of Atlanta.— Negro Emigration. — Indigent Negroes. — Niggers' best 
Friends. — Railroad to Macon. — The Country. — City of Refuge. — Colored Popu- 
lation. — Murders and Shootings. — Need of Cavalry. — Georgia and the War.— 
Freedmen's Bureau and the People. — Negro of Middle Georgia. — Infraction of 
Contracts. — Control of Bureau Funds. — Macon Freedmen's Schools. — Union 
Men in Georgia. — An Old Settler's Storv. — " No Party " Cry. — Confederates and 
Yankees ." 460 

CHAPTER LXV. — Andersonville. 

Yankee Prison at Macon. — " Death's Acre."— Trial of Captain Wirz. — His Per- 
sonal Appearance. — Scene of his Crimes. — Name of the Town. — Present Appear- 
ance. — The Stockade. — Double Walls. — The Dead Line. — Prisoners' Caves. — 
Huts and Barrack Sheds. — Out-Buildings. — Cemetery. — Death Record. — In- 
scriptions. — Rebel Owner's Claim. — Testimony of Georgians 468 

CHAPTER LXVI. — Sherman in Middle Georgia. 

Tradition regarding General Sherman's Gloves. — Confederate General's Testimony. 
— Criticisms and Anecdotes. — "The Great Robber" in Jones County. — Confed- 
erate Stockings. — Yankee Soldiers and Rebel Dogs. — Sherman's Field Orders. — 
Pillagers. — Shooting Horses and Stock. — Army and its Stragglers. — Negro and 
the Trunk. — Persuasion of a Rope. — The "Great Robber" in Putnam County. — 
Not a Raid. — Movement of the Army. — Panic of the People. — Flight from Mil- 
ledgeville. — Masters and Slaves 475 

CHAPTER LXVII. — Plantation Glimpses. 

Worn-out Plantations. — Houses on Props. — A Northern Man's Experience. — Men 
and Women Ploughing. — Home Blanufactiires. — A Planter's House. — Old Mas- 
ter and Young Master. — A Georgia Woman and the Yankees 482 

CHAPTER LXVIII. — Politics and Free Labor in Georgia. 

Milledgeville. — State Legislature. — Repudiation. — Complaints of Confederate Des- 
potism. — Value of Slave Propertj^; to be Paid for by the Government. — Common- 
School System. — Freedmen's Schools. — Negro w'ith' the Small-Pox. — Georgia 
Planter and Niggers. — Kinder than the Yankees. — Poor Whites in New York 

and JIassachusetts. — Abuse of the Yankees; of Freedmen's Bureau. — Mr. C 

of Oglethorpe County; why he damned the Yankees. — Tax on Color. — South- 
ern Methods. — State Commissioner of the Bureau. — Planters' Prolits. — Mean- 
ness of the Georgians. — Sending Negroes out of the State. — Ignorance of the 
Freed People. — Tendency to Idleness. — Bribes Oftered. — Cruelties to Freed- 
men. — Public Sentiment on the S ubj ect. — Cotton Crop 488 

CHAPTER LXIX. — Sherman in Eastern Georgia. 

Sherman and the Railroads. — Conditioif of the Tracks. — General Grant on Sher- 
man's "Hair Pins." — Machinerv for Destroying Track. — Condition of the Bent 
Iron.— Railroad Buildings. — One Glove off. — The "Bummers" in Burke 
Countv.— People Stripped of Everything. — Sherman and the Old Woman.— 
Buried Gold and Silver. — Shrewdness of Planter's Wife. — A " Sorry " Watch. — 
Experience of a Northern Man. — Running off Goods and Stock. — Hiding Place in 



xii TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

the Bushes. — Coming of the Soldiers. — Stopped b}-- Yankee Cavahy. — Why the 
Women screamed. — Pursuit of a Horse. — Luck of a Poor Planter. — Reduced 
to Corn-Meal Bran. — By Stage to Scarborough. — By Rail to Savannah. — Com- 
ments of the Passengers. — By the Ogeechee River. — Importation of Hay . . . 501 

CHAPTER LXX.— A Glance at Savannah. 

Sherman at Savannah. — Conference with Secretary Stanton. — Issuing of General 
Orders No. 15. — Aspect of the City, — Situation. — Inhabitants. — Trade. — Col- 
ored Schools. — Bonaventure Cemetery 508 

CHAPTER LXXI. — Charleston and the War. 

Charleston and Savannah Railroad. — Steamboats. — Morning in Charleston Harbor. 

— Objects in the Mist. — Historic Water. — Charleston and the Old Flag. — Early 
Walk in the City. — Turkey Buzzards. — People and Houses. — Great Fire of 18G1. 

— Its Origin. — Picturesque Ruins. — Damage done by Shells. — Spite against 
Firemen. — Panic and Flight of the Inhabitants. — A Northern Man's Experience. 

— Nineteen Months' Bombardment. — Not a Joyful Anniversary. — Evacuation by 
the Rebels. — Fire and Explosion. — The City isolated 511 

CHAPTER LXXII.— A Visit to Foet Sumter. 

Harbor Obstructions. — Destructive Water Worm. — Palmetto Wharves. — Fort Sum- 
ter from without. — A Mass of Ruins. — Effect of Bombardment. — Section of the 
Old Wall. — Landing at the Fort. —Inside View. — The Old Flag again. — Situa- 
tion of the Fort. — Old Iron under the Walls. — Cost of United States Forts. — 
Garrison. — Beauregard's Bombardment. — Major Anderson's Fame. — Fame not 
80 cheap since. — Military Duty and Common Sense. — Policy of the Government. 

— The F^ort from Morris Island 517 

CHAPTER LXXIIL — A Prison and a Prisoner. 

General S 's Visits to Charleston. — Taken Prisoner. — Jumping fi-om the Cars. 

— Circular Perambulation. —The Man with the Bag of Corn. — Pine-leaves and 
Tobacco.— Cliased by Blood-hounds. — What he lived on. —Visit to a lone Widow. 

— Night in a Canebrake. — A Man on Horseback. — Proffer of a Canteen. —A 
Friend in Need. — Night in a Gin-House. — Parting in the Morning. — Entan- 
gled among Streams. —Taken for a Spy. — Recognized. — How he gut his Clothes 
again. — S'ent to Macon. — Tunnelling the Ground under the Stockade. — Betrayed. 

— Sent to Charleston. — The Work-house. — Jail and Hospitals. — Entrance to 
the Work-house, Rooms, and "Cells. — Prisoners' Bunks. — Visited by a Shell.— 
Watching the Shells bv Night. — A Taste of the pure Air. —Negro Whippings. 

— Tower of Observation.— Mountain of Offal. —" Kindness " to Prisoners.— 
Plans of Escape. —Exploring the Cistern. — Tunnelling the Walls. — Betrayed 
again. — Grand Scheme to Capture and Fire the City. — Exchanged 521 

CHAPTER LXXI v. — The Sea-Islands. 

Negro of Cotton States and Border States. — Causes of Difference. — Slaves and 
Slavery in South Carolina. — Labor Disorganized. — Negro Instincts. — Emigra- 
tion to the Coast. — Settlements under Sherman's Order. — No more Allotments. 

— General Howard's Visit. — President's Theory. — Conflict of Authority. — Of 
Claims. — Nothing Settled. — Freedmen's Crops. — Gun and Fishing-Rod. — Dis- 
couragement. — Difficult Question 532 

CHAPTER LXXV. — A Visit to James Island. 

Stroll along the Wharves. — Negroes under Coal-Sheds. — Misery. — Boats to 
James Island. — Planters and their Freedmen. — Taciturn Boatman. — Previous 
Visits. — Captured by Negroes. — Third Visit. — Our Reception. — Number of 
Freedmen. — House of Three Orphans.*- Conversation with their Guardian. — 
An Unreasonable Complaint. —A Northern Man's Fortunes. — Negro from St. 
John. — " Faithful Old Familv Servant." — Colored Guard. — Women " Listing." 

— Our Guard takes Notes. — Negroes Farming. — Attachment to their Homes. — 
Children going to School. — Shade-Trees used for Fences. — Extent of the Island. 

— Freedmeu their own Driver 537 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. xiij 

CHAPTER LXXVI. — Siikkmax in South Cakolina. 

Destruction by the Army. — A South Side View. — In Orangeburg District. — A 
Lady's Account. — Discipline of the Army. — Fidelity of an Old Cook. — Warned 
by a Dream. — Behavior of the Negroes, — Firing Houses. — I'oragcrs. — Yaukee 
Otlieers. — Soldiers' Fun and Mischief. — Behavior. — Destructiveuess. — I liree 
Nights in the Chimney Corner. — White Lie by a Black Boy. — White Ollicers 
and Black Girls. — Robbed of everytliing. — The Negroes afterwards. — Few 
White Men led in the Country. — Cut olt' from Charleston 546 

CHAPTER LXXVIL — The Burning of Columbia. 

The Fall of Pride. — Infatuation of the People. — Scenes of Panic. — Citizen Plun- 
derers. — General Sherman's Promise. — Origin of the Fires. — Accounts by Re- 
sponsible Citizens. — Rocket Signals. — Fire-Balis thrown iulo Houses. — Stories 
of Federal (iuards. — Skill at linding Treasures. — "Divining Rods." — The Fire 
in the Distance. — Dismay and Terror. — Thirty Millions of Property Destroyed. — 
Sacking of the Churches; of Masonic and Odd-Fellow Lodges. — Drunkenness. — 
Discipline. — Robberies. — Many Guards faithful. — Curious Incidents. — Funeral 
of a Lapdog. — Popular Jokes in the Army. — Mrs. Minegault's Bracelet. — Des- 
titution. — Doing as we would have been done by. — War and Institutions of 
Learning. — Horrors left behind. — Ruins 553 

CHAPTER LXXVIIL— Notes on South Caholixa. 

Free Labor in the Eastern District. — West of the Wateree. — Planters and the Crop 
they depended on. — Cotton and Corn. — Crops during the Confederacy. — Rice 
Culture. — Railroads. — Finances. — tfnited States Taxes. — Prevalence of Crime. 
— Dishonest Treasury Agents; their Modes of Operating. — Animosity against the 
Government. — Progressive Class. — Governor Orr on JTegro Sutfrage. — Story of 
a Negro Carpenter. — Freedmen's Schools 565 

CHAPTER LXXIX. — The Ride to Winnsboko'. 

By Stage from Columbia. — Destruction of the Railroad Track. — The Yankees Dis- 
sected. — A Skeleton at the Banquet. — Stage-Coach Conversation. — Negro Suf- 
frage and Free Labor. — Spirit of the People. — Outrages on Negroes. — A Candid 
Confession. — Sherman's " Bummers " at Winnsboro' 571 

CHAPTER LXXX. — A Glimpse of the old North State. 

Change of Scene. — North Carolina Legislature. — Business at Raleigh. — Impov- 
erishment of the State. — Effects of Repudiation. — Stay Laws. — Rice Culture. — 
North Carolina Farmers. — Freedmeu and Freedmen's Schools. — Governor Worth 
on Sherman's " Bummers" 578 

CHAPTER LXXXI. — Conclusions. 

Return Home. — Summing Up. — Condition of the South. — Demand for Capital and 
Labor. — Recovery of Agriculture and Business. — A Hint to Emigrants. — Loy- 
alty of the People. — Union Men at the Close of Hostilities. — A Change for the 
Worse. — Talk for the Talk's sake. — Enough of War. — Danger of Unarmed Re- 
bellion. — Aims of Sputhem Leaders. — Security needed. — How to punish 
Treason. — Plans of Reconstruction. — Southern Plan. — Southern Representatives 
and the Test Oath. — The Rule of Justice. — Principles of the Declaration of In- 
dependence—Impartial Sutfrage. — Historj^ of Progressive Ideas. — Time for the 
Sowing of the New Seed. — Are the Blacks prepared for the Franchise ? — The 
Basis of Representation. — Prospects 583 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Page. 

Under a Palmetto, Frontispiece. 

Soldiers' Monument at Gettysburg, Illustrated Title-Page. 

Taking the Oath of Allegiance, ' 103 

Distributing Rations, 161 

Industry of Ladies in Clothing Confederate Sol- 
diers, 189 

Teaching the Freedmen, 838 

Explosion at Mobile, 421 

Convention of Freedmen Discussing their Politi- 
cal Rights, 458 

Sherman's Raid, 480 

Leaving Charleston on the City being Bombarded, 515 

MAPS. ■ 

Gettysburg to Fredericksburg, 21 

Virginia, 22 

Fredericksburg to Petersburg, 199 

Kentucky and Tennessee, 237 

Chattanooga to Atlanta, 249 

Mississippi, 346 

Mobile Harbor, 416 

Alabama, 434 

Charleston Harbor, 512 

South Carolina, 647 

North Carolina 579 



THE SOUTH. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE START. 

In the month of August, 1865, I set out to visit some of 
the scenes of the great conflict through which the country had 
lately passed. 

On the twelfth I reached Harrisburg, — a plain, prosaic 
town of brick and wood, with nothing especially attractive 
about it except its broad-sheeted, shining river, flowing down 
from the Blue Ridge, around wooded islands, and between 
pleasant shores. 

It is in this region that the traveller from the North first 
meets with indications of recent actual war. The Susque- 
hanna, on the eastern shore of which the city stands, forms the 
northern limit of Rebel military operations. The " high- water 
mark of the Rebellion " is here : along these banks its utter- 
most ripples died. The bluffs opposite the town are still 
crested with the hastily constructed breastworks, on which the 
citizens worked night and day in the pleasant month of June, 
1863, throwing up, as it were, a dike against the tide of inva- 
sion. These defences were of no practical value. They were 
unfinished when the Rebels appeared in force in the vicinity : 
Harrisburg might easily have been taken, and a way opened 
into the heart of the North. But a Power greater than man's 
ruled the event. The Power that lifted these azure hills, and 
spread out the green valleys, and hollowed a passage for the 
stream, appointed to treason also a limit and a term. " Thus 
far and no farther." 



16 THE START. 

The surrounding country is full of lively reminiscences of 
those terrible times. Panic-stricken populations flying at the 
approach of the enemy ; whole families fugitive from homes 
none thought of defending ; flocks and herds, horses, wagon- 
loads of promiscuously heaped household stuffs and farm prod- 
uce, — men, women, children, riding, walking, running, driv- 
ing or leading their bewildered four-footed chattels, — all 
rushing forward with clamor and alarm under clouds of dust, 
crowding every road to the river, and thundering across the 
long bridges, regardless of the " five-dollars-fine " notice, 
(though it is to be hoped that the toll-takers did their duty ;) 
— such w-ere the scenes which occurred to render the Rebel 
invasion memorable. The thrifty Dutch farmers of the lower 
counties did not gain much credit either for courage or patriot- 
ism at that time. It was a panic, however, to which almost 
any community would have been liable. Stuart's famous raid 
of the previous year was well remembered. If a small cavalry 
force had swept from their track through a circuit of about 
sixtv miles over tw^o thoiisand horses, what was to be expected 
from Lee's wdiole army ? Resistance to the formidable 
advance of one hundred thousand disciplined troops was of 
course out of the question. The slowness, however, with which 
the people responded to the State's almost frantic calls for 
volunteers was in singular contrast Avith the alacrity each man 
showed to run oft' his horses and iiet his g-oods out of Rebel 
reach. 

From Harrisburg I went, by the way of York and Hanover, 
to Gettysburg. Having hastily secured a room at a hotel in 
the Square, (the citizens call it the " Di'mond,") I inquired 
the way to the battle-ground. 

" You are on it now," said the landlord, with proud satis- 
faction, — for it is not every man that lives, much less keeps a 
tavern, on the field of a world-famous fight. " I tell you the 
truth," said he ; and, in proof of his words, (as if the fact were 
too wonderful to be believed without proof,) he showed me a 
Rebel shell imbedded in the brick wall of a house close by. 
CN. B. The battle-field was put into the bill.) 



JOHN BURNS. 17 

Gettysburg is the capital of Adams County : a town of 
about three thousand souls, — or fifteen hundred, according to 
John Burns, who assured me that half the population were 
Copperheads, and that they had no souls. It is pleasantly 
situated on the swells of a fine undulating country, drained by 
the headwaters of the Monocacy. It has no especial natui'al 
advantages ; owing its existence, probably, to the mere fact 
that several important roads found it convenient to meet at 
this point, to which accident also is due its historical renown. 
The circumstance which made it a burg made it likewise a 
battle-field. 

About the town itself there is nothing very interesting. It 
consists chiefly of two- story houses of wood and brick, in dull 
rows, with thresholds but little elevated above the street. 
Rarely a front yard or blooming garden-plot relieves the dreary 
monotony. Occasionally there is a three-story house, comfort- 
able, no doubt, and suflSciently expensive, about w^iicli the one 
thing remarkable is the total absence of taste in its construc- 
tion. In this respect Gettysburg is but a fair sample of a large 
class of American towns, the builders of which seem never 
once to have been conscious that there exists such a thing as 
beauty. 

John Burns, known as the " hero of Gettysburg," was 
almost the first person whose acquaintance I made. He was 
sittino; under the thick shade of an Eno-lish elm in front of 
the tavern. The landlord introduced him as " the old man 
who took his gun and "jvent into the first day's fight." He 
rose to his feet and received me with sturdy politeness ; his 
evident delight in the celebrity he enjoys twinkling through 
the veil of a naturally modest demeanor. 

" John will go with you and show you the different parts of 
the battle-ground," said the landlord. " Will you, John ? " 

" Oh, yes, I '11 go," said John, quite readily ; and we set 
out. 



18 THE FIELD OF GETTYSBURG. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE FIELD OF GETTYSBURG. 

A MILE south of the town is Cemetery Hill, the head and 
fi'ont of an important ridge, running two miles farther south to 
Round Top, — the ridge held by General INIeade's army during 
the gi'eat battles. The Rebels attacked on three sides, — on 
the west, on the north, and on the east ; breaking their forces 
in vain upon this tremendous wedge, of wdiich Cemetery Hill 
may be considered the point. A portion of Ewell's Corps had 
passed through the town several days before, and neglected to 
secure that very commanding position. Was it mere accident, 
or something more, which thus gave the key to the country 
into our hands, and led the invaders, alarmed by Meade's 
vigorous pursuit, to fall back and fight the decisive battle 
here ? 

With the old '> hero " at my side pointing out the various 
points of interest, I ascended Cemetery HiU. The view from 
the top is beautiful and striking. On the north and east is 
spread a finely variegated farm country ; on the west, with 
woods and valleys and sunny slopes*between, rise the summits 
of the Blue Ridge. 

It was a soft and peaceful summer day. There was scarce 
a sound to break the stillness, save the shrill note of the locust, 
and the perpetual cHck-cHck of the stone-cutters at work upon 
the granite headstones of the soldiers' cemetery. There was 
nothing to indicate to a stranger that so tranquil a spot had 
ever been a scene of strife. We were walking in the time- 
hallowed place of the dead, by whose side the martyr-soldiers 
who fought so bravely and so well on those terrible first days 
of July, slept as sweetly and securely as they. 



THE CEMETERY. 19 

" It don't look here as it did after the battle," said John 
Bums. " Sad Avork was made with the tombstones. The 
ground was all covered with dead horses, and broken wao-ons, 
and pieces of shells, and battered muskets, and everythino- of 
that kind, not to speak of the heaps of dead." But now the 
tombstones have been replaced, the neat iron fences have been 
mostly repaired, and scarcely a vestige of the fight remains. 
Only the burial-places of the slain are there. Thirty-jive hun- 
dred and sixty slaughtered Union soldiers lie on the field of 
Gettysburg. This number does not include those whose bodies 
have been claimed by friends and removed. 

The new cemetery, devoted to the patriot slain, and dedi- 
cated with fitting ceremonies on the 19th of November, 1863, 
adjoins the old one. In the centre is the spot reserved for the 
monument, the corner-stone of which was laid on the 4th of 
July, 18G5. The cemetery is semicircular, in the form of an 
amphitheatre, except that the slope is reversed, the monument 
occupying the highest place. The granite headstones resemble 
rows of semicircular seats. Side by side, with two feet of 
ground allotted to each, and with their heads towards the 
monument, rest the three thousand five hundred and sixty. 
The name of each, when it could be ascertained, together with 
the number of the company and regiment in which he served, 
is lettered on the granite at his head. But the barbarous 
practice of stripping such of our dead as fell into their hands, 
in which the Rebels indulged here as elsewhere, rendered it 
impossible to identify large numbers. The headstones of these 
are lettered " Unknown." At the time when I visited the 
cemetery, the sections containing most of the unknown had 
not yet received their headstones, and their resting -places 
were indicated by a forest of stakes. I have seen few sadder 
sights. 

The spectacle of so large a field crowded with the graves of 
the slain brings home to the heart an overpowering sense of 
the horror and wickedness of war. Yet, as I have said, not 
all our dj,\id are here. None of the Rebel dead are here. 
Not one of those who fell on other fields, or died in hospitals 



20 THE FIELD OF GETTYSBURG. 

and prisons in those States where the war was chiefly waged, 

— not one out of those innumerable martyi'ed hosts hes on this 
pleasant hill. The bodies of once living and brave men, 
slowly mouldering to dust in this sanctified soil, form but a 
small, a single sheaf from that great recent harvest reaped by 
Death with the sickle of war. 

Once livino; and brave ! How full of life, how full of un- 
flinching courage and fiery zeal they marched up hitlier to 
fio-ht the "^reat fiffht, and to give their lives ! And each man 
had his history ; each soldier resting here had his interests, his 
loves, his darling hopes, the same as you or I. All were laid 
down Avith his life. It was no trifle to him : it Avas as great a 
thing to him as it Avould be to you, thus to be cut off" from all 
things dear in this Avorld, and to drop at once into a vague 
eternity. Grown accustomed to the Avaste of life through 
years of Avar, Ave learn to think too lightly of such sacrifices. 
" So many killed," — Avith that brief sentence Ave glide oA'er 
the vmimaginably fearful fact, and pass on to other details. 
We indulge in pious commonplaces, — " They have gone to a 
better world; they have their rcAvard," and the like. No 
doubt this is true ; if not, then life is a mockery, and hope a 
lie. But the future, Avith all our faith, is vague and uncer- 
tain. It lies before us like one of those unidentified heroes, 
hidden from sight, deep-buried, mysterious, its headstone let- 
tered " UnknoAvn." Will it ever rise? Through trouble, 
toils, and privations, — not insensible to danger, but braA'ing it, 

— these men — and not these only, but the uncounted thou- 
sands represented by these — confronted, for their country's 
sake, that awful uncertainty. Did they believe in your better 
world ? ^Whether they did or not, this world was a reality, 
and dear to them. 

I looked into one of the trenches, in which workmen were 
laying foundations for the headstones, and saw the ends of the 
coflfins protruding. It was silent and dark down there. Side 
by side the soldiers slept, as side by side they fought. I 
chose out one coffin from among the rest, and thought of him 
whose dust it contained, — your brother and mine, although 



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PROSPECT FROM CEMETERY IIILL. 23 

we never knew him. I thought of him as a child, tenderly 
reared up — for this. I thought of his home, his heart-life : •— 

" Had he a father ? 

Had he a mother ? 
Had he a sister ? 

Had he a brother ? 
Or was there a nearer one 
Still, and a dearer cro 

Yet, than all other i " 

I could not know ; in this world, none will ever know. He 
• sleeps with the undistinguishable nuiltitude, and his headstone 
is lettered " Unknown." 

Eighteen loyal States are represented by the tenants of 
these graves. New York has the greatest number, — up- 
wards of eight hundred ; Pennsylvania comes next in order, 
having upwards of five hundred. Tall men from Maine, 
young braves from Wisconsin, heroes from every State be- 
tween, met here to defend their country and their homes. 
Sons of Massachusetts fought for Massachusetts on Pennsyl- 
vania soil. If they had not fought, or if our armies had been 
annihilated here, the whole North would have been at the 
mercy of Lee's victorious legions. As Cemetery Hill was the 
pivot on which turned the fortunes of the battle, so Gettys- 
burg itself was the pivot on which turned the destiny of the 
nation. Here the power of aggressive treason culminated ; 
and from that memorable Fourth of July, when the Rebel in- 
vaders, beaten in the three days' previous fight, stole away 
down the valleys and behind the mountains on their ignomin- 
ious retreat, — from that day, signalized also by tlie full of 
Vicksburg in the West, it waned and waned, until it was 
swept from the earth. 

Cemetery Hill should be first visited by the tourist of the 
battle-ground. Here a view of the entire field, and a clear 
understanding of the military operations of the three days, are 
best obtained. Looking north, away on your left lies Semi- 
nary Ridge, the scene of the first day's fight, in which the gal- 
lant Reynolds fell, and from which our troops were driven back 



24 THE FIELD OF GETTYSBURG. 

in confusion through the town by overwhehiiing nnmbe. 
the afternoon. Farther south spread the beautiful woods an^_ 
vales that swarmed with Rebels on the second and third day, 
and from which they made such desperate charges upon our 
lines. On the right as you stand is Gulp's Hill, the scene of 
Ewell's furious but futile attempts to flank us there. You are 
in the focus of a half-circle, from all points of which was poured 
in upon this now silent hill such an artillery fire as has seldom 
been concentrated upon one point of an open field in any of 
the great battles upon this planet. From this spot extend your 
observations as you please. 

Guided by the sturdy old man, I proceeded first to Gulp's 
Hill, following a line of breastworks into the woods. Here are 
seen some of the soldiers' devices, hastily adopted for defence. 
A rude embankment of stakes and logs and stones, covered 
with earth, forms the principal work ; aside from which you 
meet with little private breastworks, as it were, consisting of 
rocks heaped up by the trunk of a tree, or beside a larger rock, 
or across a cleft in the rocks, where some sharpshooter stood 
and exercised his skill at his ease. 

The woods are of oak chiefly, but with a liberal sprinkling 
of chestnut, black-walnut, hickory, and other common forest- 
trees. Very beautiful they Avere that day, with their great, 
silent trunks, all so friendly, their clear vistas and sun-spotted 
spaces. Beneath reposed huge, sleepy ledges and boulders, 
their broad backs covered with lichens and old moss. A more 
fitting spot for a picnic, one would say, than for a battle. 

Yet here remain more astonishing evidences of fierce fight- 
in o- than anywhere else about Gettysburg. The trees in cer- 
tain localities are all scarred, disfigured, and literally dying or 
dead from their wounds. The marks of balls in some of the 
trunks are countless. Here are limbs, and yonder are whole 
tree-tops, cut off by shells. Many of these trees have been 
hacked for lead, and chips containing bullets have been carried 
away for relics. 

Past the foot of the hill runs Rock Greek, a muddy, sluggish 
stream, " great for eels," said John Burns. Big boulders and 



QUIET OF CEMETERt HILL. 25 

blocks of stone He scattered along its bed. Its low shores are 
covered with thin grass, shaded by the forest-trees. Plenty of 
Rebel knii]).sack.s and haversacks lie rotting npdn the ground ; 
and there are Rebel graves near by in the woods. By these I 
Avas inclined to pause longer than John Burns thought it worth 
the while. I felt a pity for these unhap])y men, which he could 
not understand. To him they were dead Rebels, and nothing 
more ; and he spoke Avith great disgust of an effort which had 
been made by certain " Copperheads " of the town to have all 
the buried Rebels now scattered about in the woods and fields 
gathered together in a cemeteiy near that dedicated to our own 
dead. 

"Yet consider, my friend," I said, "though they were 
altogether in the wrong, and their cause was infernal, these, 
too, were brave men ; and, under different circumstances, with 
no better hearts than they had, they might have been lying in 
honored graves up yonder, instead of being buried in heaps, 
like dead cattle, down here." 

Is there not a better future for these men also ? The time 
will come Avhen we shall at least cease to hate them. 

The cicada Avas singing, insects Avere humming in the air, 
crows were cawing in the tree-tops, the sunshine slept on the 
boughs or nestled in the beds of brown leaA^es on the ground, 
— all so pleasant and so pensive, I could have passed the day 
there. But John reminded me that night was approaching, 
and Ave returned to Gettysburo-. 

That evening I walked alone to Cemetery Hill, to see the 
sun set behind the Blue Ridge. A quiet prevailed there still 
more profound than during the day. The stone-cutters had 
finished their day's Avork and gone home. The katydids Aver& 
singing, and the shrill, sad chirp of the crickets Avelcomed the 
cool shades. The sun went doAvn, and the stars came out and 
shone upon the graves, — the same stars Avhich were no doubt 
slnnmg CA'en then upon many a vacant home and mourning 
heart left lonely by the husbands, the fathers, the dear brothers 
and sons, Avho fell at Gettysburg. 

The next morning, according to agi*eement, I AA-ent to call 



26 THE FIELD OF GETTYSBURG. 

on the old hero. I found him living in the upper part of a 
little whitewashed two-story house, on the corner of two streets 
west of the town. A flight of wooden steps outside took me 
to his door. He was there to welcome me. John Burns is a 
stoutish, slightly bent, hale old man, with a light-blue eye, a 
long, aggressive nose, a firm-set mouth expressive of deter- 
mination of character, and a choleric temperament. His hair, 
originally dark -brown, is considerably bleached with age ; and 
his beard, once sandy, covers his face (shaved once or twice a 
week) with a fine crop of silver stubble. A short, massy kind 
of man ; about five feet four or five inches in height, I should 
judge. He was never measured but once in his life. That 
was when he enlisted in the War of 1812. He was then 
nineteen years old, and stood five feet in his shoes. " But 
I 've gi'owed a heap since," said John. 

At my reqviest he told his story. 

On the morning of the first day's fight he sent his wife 
away, telling her that he would take care of the house. The 
firing was near by, over Seminary Ridge. Soon a wounded 
soldier came into the town and stopped at an old house on the 
opposite corner. Burns saw the poor fellow lay down his 
musket, and the inspiration to go into the battle seems then 
first to have seized him. He went over and demanded the 
gun. 

" What are you going to do with it? " asked the soldier. 

" I 'm going to shoot some of the damned Rebels ! " replied 
John. 

He is not a swearing man, and the strong adjective is to be 
taken in a strictly literal, not a profane, sense. 

Having obtained the gun, he pushed out on the Chambers- 
burg Pike, and was soon in the thick of the skirmish. 

" I wore a high-crowned hat and a long-tailed blue ; and I 
was seventy year old." 

The siglit of so old a man, in such costume, rushing fear- 
lessly forward to get a shot in the very front of the battle, of 
course attracted attention. He fought with the Seventh Wis- 
consin Regiment ; the Colonel of which ordered him back, and 



JOHN BURNS'S STORY. 27 

questioned liim, and finally, seeing the old man's patriotic 
determination, gave him a good rifle in place of the musket he 
had brought -with him. 

" Are you a good shot ? " 

" Tolerable good," said John, who is an old fox-hunter. 

" Do you see that Rebel riding yonder ? " 

" I dJ." 

*' Can you fetch him ? " 

"I can try." 

The old man took deliberate aim and fired. He does not say 
he killed the Rebel, but simply that his shot was cheered by 
the Wisconsin boys, and that afterwards the horse the Rebel 
rode was seen galloping with an empty saddle. 

" That 's all I know about it." 

He fought until our forces were driven back in the after- 
noon. He had already received two slight wounds, and a third 
one through the arm, to which he paid little attention ; " only 
the blood running down my hand bothered me a heap." 
Then, as he was slowly falling back with the rest, he received 
a final shot throufrh the leo;. " Down I went, and the whole 
Rebel army run over me." Helpless, nearly bleeding to death 
from his wounds, he lay upon the field all night. " About 
sun-up, next morning, I crawled to a neighbor's bouse, and 
found it full of wounded Rebels." The neighbor afterwards 
took him to his own house, Avhich had also been turned into a 
Rebel hospital. A Rebel surgeon dressed his wounds ; and he 
says he received decent treatment at the hands of the enemy, 
until a Copperhead woman living opposite " told on him." 

" That 's the old man who said he was going out to shoot 
some of the damned Rebels ! " 

Some officers came and questioned him, endeavoring to con- 
vict him of bushwhacking. But the old man gave them little 
satisfaction. This was on Friday, the third day of the battle ; 
and he was alone with his wife in the upper part of the house. 
The Rebels left ; and soon after two shots were fired. One 
bullet entered the window, passed over Burns's head, and 
penetrated the wall behind the lounge on which he was lying. 



28 THE FIELD OF GETTYSBURG. 

The other shot fell lower, passing through a door. Burns is 
certain that the design was to assassinate him. That the shots 
were fired by the Rebels there can be no doubt ; and as they 
were fired from their own side, towards the town, of which 
they held possession at the time, John's theory seems the true 
one. The hole in the window, and the bullet-marks in the 
door and wall, remain. 

Burns went with me over the ground where the first day's 
ficrht took ])lace. He showed me the scene of his hot dav's 
work, — pointed out two trees behind which he and one of 
the Wisconsin boys stood and " picked off every Rebel that 
showed his head," and the spot where he fell and lay all night 
under the stars and dew. 

This act of daring on the part of so aged a citizen, and his 
subsequent sufferings from wounds, naturally called out a great 
deal of sympathy, and caused him to be looked upon as a hero. 
But a hero, like a prophet, has not all honor in his own 
country. There is a wide-spread, violent prejudice against 
Burns among that class of the townspeople termed " Copper- 
heads." The young men especially, Avho did not take their 
guns and go into the fight as this old man did, but who ran, 
when running was possible, in the opposite direction, dislike 
Burns ; some averring that he did not have a gun in his hand 
that day, but that he was wounded by accident, happening to 
get between the two lines. 

Of his going into the fight and fighting^ there is no doubt 
whatever. Of his bravery, amounting even to rashness, there 
can be no reasonable question. He is a patriot of the most 
zealous sort ; a hot, impulsive man, who meant what he said 
when he started with the gun to go and shoot some of the 
Rebels qualified with the strong adjective. A thoroughly 
honest man, too, I think ; although some of his remarks are to 
be taken with considerable allowance. His temper causes him 
to form immoderate opinions and to make strong statements. 
" He alwags goes heyant,^^ said my landlord. 

Burns is a sagacious observer of men and things, and makes 
occasionally such shrewd remarks as this : 



LITTLE ROUND TOP. 29 

" Whenever you see the marks of shells and bullets on a 
house all covered up, and painted and plastered over, that 's 
the house of a Rebel sympathizer. But when you see them 
all preserved and kept in sight, as something to be proud of, 
that 's the house of a true Union man ! " 

Well, whatever is said or thought of thu old hero, he is ^vhat 
he is, and has satisfaction in that, and not in other people's 
opinions ; for so it must finally be with all. Character is the 
one thing valuable. Reputation, which is a mere shadow of 
the man, what his character is reputed to be, is, in the long n.m, 
of infinitely less importance. 

I am happy to add that the old man has been awarded a 
pension. 

The next day I mounted a hard-trotting horse and rode to 
Round Top. On the way I stopped at the historical peach- 
orchard, known as Sherfy's, where Sickles's Corps was re- 
pulsed, after a terrific conflict, on Thursday, the second day of 
the battle. The peaches were green on the trees then ; but 
they were ripe now, and the branches Avere breaking down with 
them. One of Mr. Sherfy's girls — the youngest she told me 
— was in the orchard. She had in her basket rareripes to 
sell. They were large and juicy and sweet, — all the redder, 
no doubt, for the blood of the brave that had drenched the sod. 
So calm and impassive is Nature, silently turning all things to 
use. The carcass of a mule, or the godlike shape of a warrior 
cut down in the hour of glory, — she knows no difil'renco 
between them, but straightway proceeds to convert both alike 
into new forms of life and beauty. 

Between fields made memorable by hard fighting I rodt; 
eastward, and, entering a pleasant wood, ascended Little 
Round Top. The eastern slope of this rugged knol) is covered 
with timber. The western side is steep, and wild with rocks 
and bushes. Near by is the Devil's Den, a dark cavity in the 
rocks, interesting henceforth on account of the fight that took" 
place here for the possession of these heights. A photographic 
view, taken the Sunday morning after the battle, shows eight 
dead Rebels tumbled headlong, with their guns, among the 
rocks below the Den. 



80 THE FIELD OF GETTYSBURG. 

A little farther on is Round Top itself, a craggy tusk of the 
rock-jawed earth pushed up there towards the azure. It is 
covered all over with broken ledges, boulders, and fields of 
stones. Among these the forest-trees have taken root, — 
thrifty Nature making the most of things even here. The 
serene leafy tops of ancient oaks tower aloft in the bluish- 
golden air. It is a natural fortress, which our boys strength- 
ened still further by throwing up the loose stones into handy 
breastworks. 

Returning, I rode the whole length of the ridge held by our 
troops, realizing more and more the importance of that ex- 
traordinary position. It is like a shoe, of which Round Top 
represents the heel, and Cemetery Hill the toe. Here all our 
forces were concentrated on Thursday and Friday, within a 
space of two miles. Movements from one part to another of 
this compact field could be made with celerity. Lee's forces, 
on the other hand, extended over a circle of seven miles or 
more around, in a country where all their movements could be 
watched by us and anticipated. 

At a point well forward on the foot of this shoe, Meade had 
his headquarters. I tied my horse at the gate, and entered the 
little square box of a house which enjoys that historical celeb- 
rity. It is scarcely more than a hut, having but two little 
rooms on the ground-floor, and I know not what narrow, low- 
roofed chambers above. Two small girls, with brown German 
faces, were paring wormy apples under the porch ; and a 
round-shouldered, bareheaded, and barefooted woman, also with 
a German face and a strong German accent, was drawing 
water at the well. I asked her for drink, which she kindly 
gave me, and invited me into the house. 

The little box Avas whitewashed outside and in, except the 
floor and ceilings and inside doors, which were neatly scoured. 
The woman sat down to some mending, and entered freely 
into conversation. She was a widow, and the mother of six 
children. The two girls cutting wormy apples at the door 
were the youngest, and the only ones left to her. A son in 
the army was expected home in a few days. She did not 



REMINISCENCES. 31 

know how old her children were ; she did not know how old 
she was herself, " she was so forgetful." 

She ran away at the time of the fight, but was sorry after- 
wards she did not stay at home. *' She lost a heap." The 
house was robbed of almost everything ; " coverlids and sheets, 
and some of our own clo'es, all carried away. They got about 
two ton of hay from me. I owed a little on my land yit, and 
thought I 'd put in two lots of wheat that year, and it was all 
trampled down, and I did n't git nothing from it. I had seven 
pieces of meat yit, and them was all took. All I had when I 
got back was jist a little bit of flour yit. The fences was all 
tore down, so that there wa'n't one standing, and the rails 
was burnt up. One shell come into the house and knocked a 
bedstead all to pieces for me. One come in under the roof 
and knocked out a rafter for me. The porch was all knocked 
down. There was seventeen dead horses on my land. They 
burnt five of 'era around my best peach-tree, and killed it ; so 
I ha'n't no peaches this year. They broke down all my young 
apple-trees for me. The dead horses sp'iled my spring, so I 
had to have my Avell dug." 

I inquired if she had ever got anything for the damage. 

" Not much. I jist sold the bones of the dead horses. I 
could n't do it till this year, for the meat had n't rotted off yit. 
I got fifty cents a hundred. There was seven hundred and 
fifty pounds. You can reckon up what they come to. That 's 
alllgot." 

Not much, indeed ! 

This poor woman's entire interest in the great battle was, I 
found, centred in her own losses. What the country lost or 
gained, she did not know nor care, never having once thought 
of that side of the question. 

The town is full of similar reminiscences ; and it is a subject 
which everybody except the " Copperheads " likes to talk with 
you about. There were heroic women here, too. On the 
evening of Wednesday, as our forces were retreating, an ex- 
hausted Union soldier came to Mr. Gulp's house, near Gulp's 
Hill, and said, as he sank down, — 



32 THE FIELD OF GETTYSBURG. 

" If I can't have a drink of water, I must die." 

Mrs. Gulp, who had taken refuge in the cellar, — for the 
house was now between the two fires, — said, — 

" I will go to the spring and get you some water." 

It was then nearly dark. As she was returning with the 
water, a bullet whizzed past her. It was fired by a sharpshooter 
on our own side, who had mistaken her for one of the advanc- 
ing Rebels. Greatly frightened, she hurried home, bringing 
the water safely. One poor soldier was made eternally grate- 
ful by this courageous, womanly deed. A few days later the 
sharpshooter came to the house and learned that it was a 
ministering angel in the guise of a woman he had shot at. 
Great, also, must have been his gratitude for the veil of dark- 
ness which caused him to miss his aim. 

Shortly after the battle, sad tales were told of the cruel in- 
hospitality shown to the wounded Union troops by the people 
of Gettysburg. Many of these stories were doubtless true ; 
but they were true only of the more brutal of the Rebel 
sympathizers. The Union men threw open their hearts and 
their houses to the wounded. One afternoon I met a soldier 
on Cemetery Hill, who was in the battle ; and who, being at 
Harrisburg for a few days, had taken advantage of an excur- 
sion train to come over and revisit the scene of that terrible 
experience. Getting into conversation, we walked down the 
hill together. As we were approaching a double house with 
high wooden steps, he pointed out the farther one, and said, — 

" Saturday morning, after the fight, I got a piece of bread at 
that house. A man stood on the steps and gave each of our 
fellows a piece. We were hungry as bears, and it was a god- 
send. I should like to see that man and thank him." 

Just then the man himself appeared at the door. We went 
over, and I introduced the soldier, who, with tears in his eyes, 
expressed his gratitude for that act of Christian charity. 

" Yes," said the man, when reminded of the circumstance, 
" we did what we could. We baked bread here night and 
day to give to every hungry soldier who wanted it. We sent 
away our own children, to make room for the wounded soldiers, 
and for days our house was a hospital." 



THE HARVEST OF BULLETS. 33 

Instances of this kind are not few. Let them be remem- 
bered to the honor of Gettysburg. 

Of the magnitndc of a battle fonght so desperately dnrino- 
three days, by armies numbering not far from two hundred 
thousand men, no adequate conception can be formed. One 
or two facts may help to give a faint idea of it. Mr. Gulp's 
meadow, below Gemetery Hill, — a lot of near twenty acres, — 
was so thickly strown with Rebel dead, that Mr. Gulp de- 
clared he " could have walked across it without putting .foot 
upon the ground." Upwards of three hundred Gonfederates 
■were buried in that fair field in one hole. On Mr. Gwynn's 
farm, below Round Top, near five hundred sons of the South 
lie promiscuously heaped in one huge sepulchre. Of the quan- 
tities of iron, of the wagon-loads of arms, knapsacks, haver- 
sacks, and clothing, which strewed the country, no estimate 
can be made. Government set a guard over these, and for 
weeks officials were busy hi gathering together all the more 
valuable spoils. The harvest of bullets was left for the citi- 
zens to glean. Many of the poorer people did a thriving bus- 
iness picking up these missiles of death, and selling them to 
dealers ; two of whom alone sent to Baltimore fifty tons of 
lead collected in this way from the battle-field. 
3 



34 A EEMINISCENCE OF CHAMBERSBUEG. 



CHAPTER III. 

A REMINISCENCE OF CHAMBEESBURG. 

Friday afternoon, August 18tli, I left Gettysburg for 
Clianibersburg, by stage, over a rougla turnpike, which had 
been broken to pieces by Lee's artillery and army wagons two 
years before, and had not since been repaired. 

We traversed a sleepy-looking wheat and corn country, 

" Wherein it seemed always afteruoou," 

SO little stir was there, so few signs of life and enterprise were 
visible. Crossing the Blue Ridge, we passed through a more 
busy land later in the day, and entered the pleasant suburbs 
■of Chambersburg at sunset. 

The few scattered residences east of the railroad were soon 
passed, however, and we came upon scenes which quickly re- 
minded lis that we had entered a doomed and desolated place. 
On every side were the skeletons of houses burned by the 
Rebels but a little more than a year before. We looked across 
their roofless and broken walls, and through the sightless 
windows, at the red sunset sky. They stared at us with their 
empty eye-sockets, and yawned at us with their fanged and 
jagged jaws. Dead shade-trees stood solemn in the dusk 
beside the dead, deserted streets. In places, the woi-k of re- 
building had been vigorously commenced ; and the streets Avere 
to be traversed only by narrow paths between piles of old brick 
saved from the ruins, stacks of new brick, beds of mortar, and 
heaps of sand. 

Our driver took us to a new hotel erected on the ruins of 
.an old one. The landlord, eager to talk upon the exciting 
subject, told me his story while supper was preparing. 



FIRING OF CIIAMBERSBURG. 35 

" I had jeest bought the hotel tluit stood where tliis does, 
and paid eight thousand dolhirs for it. I had hu'd out two 
thousand dollars fitting it up. All the rooms had been new 
papered and furnished, and there was three hundred dollars' 
worth of carpets in the house not put down yet, when the 
Rebels they jeest come in and burnt it all up." 

This was spoken with a look and tone which showed what a 
real and teiTible thing the disaster was to this man, far dif- 
ferent from the trifle it ai)pears on ])aper. I found everybody 
full of talk on this great and absorbing topic. On the night 
of July 29th, 1864, the Rebel cavalry appeared before the 
town. Some artillery boys went out with a field-piece to 
frighten them, and fired a few shots. That kept the raiders 
at bay till morning ; for they had come, not to figlit, but to 
destrov ; and it was ticklish advancing in the dark, with the 
suggestive field-piece flashing at them. The next morning, 
however, quite early, before the alarmed inhabitants had 
thought of breakfast, they entered, — the field-piece keeping 
judiciously out of sight. They had come with General Early's 
orders to burn the town, in retaliation for General Hunter's 
spoliation of the Shenandoah Valley. That they would com- 
mit so great a crime was hardly to be credited ; for Avhat 
Hunter had done towards destro3dng th.at granary of the Con- 
federacy had been done as a military necessity, and there was 
no such excuse for burninc; Chambersburg. It seemed a folly 
as well as a crime ; for, with our armies occupying the South, 
aiul continually acquiring new districts and cities, it was in 
their power, had they been equally barbarous, to take up and 
carry on this game of retaliation until the whole South should 
have become as Sodom. 

Chambersburg had suflfei'ed from repeated Rebel raids, but it 
had escaped serious damage, and the people were inclined to 
jeer at those neighboring towns which had been terrified into 
paying heavy ransoms to the marauders. But now its time 
had come. The Confederate leaders demanded of the author- 
ities one hundred thousand dollars in gold, or five hundred 
thousand dollars in United States currency ; promising that 



86 A REMINISCENCE OF CHAMBERSBURG. 

if the money was not fortlicoming in fifteen minutes, the torch 
would be apphed. I know not whether it was possible to raise 
so great a sum in so short a time. At all events, it was not 
raised. 

Then suddenly from all parts of the town went up a cry of 
horror and dismay. The infernal work had begun. The 
town was fired in a hundred places at once. A house was 
entered, a can of kerosene emptied on a bed, and in an in- 
stant up went a burst of flame. Extensive plundering was 
done. Citizens were told that if they would give their 
monev their houses would be spared. The money was in 
many instances promptly given, when their houses were as 
promptly fired. 

Such a wail of women and children, fleeing for life from 
their flaming houses, has been seldom heard. Down the hard- 
ened cheeks of old men who could scarce remember that they 
had ever wept, the tears ran in streams. In the terrible con- 
fusion nothing was saved. In many houses money, which had 
been carefully put away, was abandoned and burned. The 
heat of the flames was fearful. Citizens who described those 
scenes to me considered it miraculous that in the midst of so 
great terror and excitement, with the town in flames on all 
sides at once, not a life was lost. 

The part of the town east of the railroad is said to have been 
saved by the presence of mind and greatness of spirit of a 
heroic lady. As her house was about to be fired, she appealed 
to a cavalry captain, and, showing him the throngs of weeping 
and wailing women and children seeking refuge in the cut 
through which the railroad passes, said to him, with solemn 
emphasis, — 

'•' In the day of judgment, sir, you will see that sight again ; 
then, sir, you will have this to answer for ! " 

The captain was touched. " It is contrary to orders," said 
he, " but this thing shall be stopped." And he stationed a 
guard along the track to prevent further destruction of the 
city in that direction. 

The homeless citizens crowded to a hill and watched from its 



THREE REBELS. 37 

summit the completion of the diabohcal work. The wliirl- 
wind of fire and smoke that went roaring up into the cahn, 
blue heavens, soon overcanopicd by one vast cloud, was in- 
describably appalling. Fortunately the day was still, other- 
wise not a house would have been left standing. As it was, 
three hundred and forty houses were burned, comprising about 
two thirds of the entire town. 

The raiders were evidently afraid of being caught at the- 
work. The smoke, which could be seen thirty or forty miles 
away, would doubtless prove a pillar of cloud to guide our 
cavalry to the spot. Having hastily accomplished their task, 
therefore, with equal haste they decamped. 

Three of their number, however, paid the penalty of the 
crime on the spot. Two, plundering a cellar, were shot by a 
redoubtable apothecary, — a choleric but conscientious man, 
who was much troubled in his mind afterwards for what he had 
done ; for it is an awful thing to take human life even under 
circumstances the most justifiable. " He was down-hearted 
all the next day about it," said one. In the meanwhile the 
dead marauders were roasted and broiled, and reduced to 
indistinguishable ashes, in the pyre they had themselves pre- 
pared. 

A major of the party, who had become Intoxicated plunder- 
ing the liquor-shops, lingered behind his companions. He 
Avas surrounded by the incensed populace and ordered to sur- 
render. Refusing, and drawing his sword with maudlin threats, 
he was shot down. He was then buried to his breast outside 
of the town, and left Avith just his shoulders protruding from 
the ground, with his horrible lolling head drooping over them. 
Having been exhibited in this state to the multitude, many 
of whom, no doubt, found some comfort in the sight, he was 
granted a more thorough sepulture. A few weeks before my 
visit to the place, a gentle-faced female from the South came 
to claim his body ; for he, too, Avas a human being, and no 
mere monster, as many supposed, and there Avere those that 
did love him. 

The distress and sufferin<i of the burnt-out inhabitants of 



88 A REMINISCENCE OF CHAMBERSBURG. 

Chambersburg; can never be told. " For six weeks they were 
jeest kept alive by the prowisions sent by other towns, which 
we dealt out here to every one that asked," said my landlord. 
" And I declare to fortune," he added, " there was scoundrels 
from the outside that had n't lost a thing, that would come in 
here and share with our starving people." These scoundrels, 
he said, were Germans, and he was very severe upon them, 
.although he himself had a German name, and a German ac- 
cent which three generations of his race in this country had 
not entirely eradicated. 

Besides the charity of the towns, the State granted one 
hundred thousand dollars for the relief of the sufferers. This 
was but as a drop to them. Those who had property remain- 
ing got nothing. The appropriation was intended for those 
who had lost everything, — and there were hundreds of such ; 
some of whom had been sto|)ped in the streets and robbed even 
of their shoes, after their houses had been fired. 

" This was jeest how it woi'ked. Some got more than they 
had before the fire. A boarding-house girl that liad lost say 
eight dollars, would come and say she had lost fifty, and she 'd 
get fifty. But men like me, that happened to have a little 
property outside, never got a cent." 

It will always remain a matter of astonishment that the great 
and pi'osperous State of Pennsylvania did not make a more 
generous appropriation. The tax necessary for the purpose 
would scarcely have been felt by any one, while it would have 
been but a just indemnification to those who had suffered in 
a cause which the whole loyal North was bound to uphold. 
Families enjoying a small competency had been at once 
reduced to poverty ; men doing a modest and comfortable 
business were unable to resume it. Those who could ob- 
tain credit before could now obtain none. Insurance was 
void. Householders were unable to rebuild, and at the time 
of my visit many were still living in shanties. Nearly all 
the rebuilding that was in progress was done on borrowed 
capital. 

But there is no loss without gain. Chambersbur<x will in 



NO LOSS WITHOUT GAIN. 89 

the end be greatly benefited by the fire, inasmucli as tlie old 
two-story buildings, of which the town Avas originally composed, 
are being replaced by three-story houses, much finer and more 
commodious. So let it be Avith our country ; fearful as our 
loss has been, we shall build better anew. 



40 SOUTH MOUNTAIN. 



CHAPTER IV. 

SOUTH MOUNTAIN. 

The next day I took the cars for Hagerstown ; passed Sun- 
day in that slow and ancient burg ; and early on Monday 
morning set out by stage for Boonsboro'. 

Our course lay down the valley of the Antietam. We 
crossed the stream at Funk's Town, a little over two miles 
from Hagerstown. " Stop at two miles and you won't be 
here," said the driver. The morning was fine ; the air fresh 
and inspiring ; and the fact that the country through which 
we passed had been fought over I'epeatedly during the war, 
added interest to the ride. A fertile valley : on each side were 
fields of tall and stalwart corn. Lusty milkweeds stood by 
the fences ; the driver called them " wild cotton." And here 
the Jamestown-weed, with its pointed leaves, and flower 
resembling the bell of a morning-glory, became abundant. 
" That 's jimson,^^ said the driver ; and he proceeded to extol 
its medicinal qualities. " Makes a good sa'v'. Rub that over 
a hoss, and I bet ye no fly lights on him ! " 

At Boonsboro' some time was consumed in finding a con- 
veyance and a guide to take me over the battle-fields. At 
length I encountered Lewy Smith, light and jaunty Lewy 
Smith, with his light and jaunty covered carryall, — whom 
I would recommend to travellers. I eno-ao-ed him for the 
afternoon of that day and for the day following ; and imme- 
diately after dinner he was at the tavern-door, snapping his 
whip. 

The traveller's most pleasant experience of Boonsboro' is 
leaving it. The town contains about nine hundred inhabit- 
ants ; and the wonder is how so many human souls can rest 



SOUTH MOUNTAIN. 41 

content to live in sucli a moukly, lonesome })l;icc. Rut once 
outside of it, you find Nature as busy in making the world 
beautiful, as man inside has been in making it as ugly as pos- 
vsible. A country village carries with it the idea of somethino- 
^ pleasant, shady, green ; therefore do not think of Boonsboro' 
as a country village. Leave it behind you as soon as con- 
venient, and turn your face to the mountain. 

That is the famed South Mountain, where the prologue to 
the Antietam fight was enacted. " I never heard it called 
South Mountain till after the battle," said Lewy Smith. " It 
was always the Blue Ridge with us." He had never heard of 
Turner's Gap, or Frog Gap, either. " We always called it just 
the gap in the mountain." The road to the gap runs southeast 
from Boonsboro', then turns easterly up the hills. It stretched 
long and pleasant before us. " The night before the battle," said 
Lewy Smith, " this road was lined with Rebels, I tell ye ! Both 
sides were covered with them about as thick as they could lie. 
It was a great sight to see so many soldiers ; and it did n't 
seem to us there were men enough in the Union army to fio-ht 
them. We thought the Rebels had got possession of Maryland, 
sure. They just went into our stores and took what they 
pleased, and paid in Confederate money ; they had come to 
stay, they said, and their money would be better than ours 
in a little while. Some who got plenty of it did well ; for 
when the Rebels slaughtered a drove of cattle, they would 
sell the hides and take their own currency for pay." 

The mountain rose before us, leopard-colored, spotted with 
sun and cloud. A few mean log houses were scattered along 
the road, near the summit of which Ave came to the JMoun- 
tain House, a place of summer resort. Here again man had 
done his best to defeat the aim of Nature ; the house and 
everything about it looked dreary and forbidding, while all 
around lay the beautiful mountain in its wild forest-shades. 

JjQwy left his horse at the stable, and we entered the woods, 
pursuing a mountain-roatl which runs south along the crest. 
A tramp of twenty minutes brought us to the scene of Gen- 
eral Reno's brilliant achievement and heroic death. A rude 



42 SOUTH MOUNTAIN. 

stone set up in the field, near a spreading cliestinit, marks the 
spot wliere he felL A few rods north of this, running east 
and west, is the mountain-road, with a stone wall on each side 
of it, where the Rebels fought furiously, until driven out from 
their defences by our boys coming up through the woods. 
The few wayside trees are riddled with bullets. A little 
higher up the crest is a log house, and a well in which fifty- 
seven dead Rebels are buried. " The owner of the house was 
offered a dollar a head for burying them. The easiest way 
he could do was to pitch them into the well. But he don't 
like to own up to having done it now." 

It was a sunny, breezy field. " Up yer 's a heap of air 
sturrinV' said a mountaineer, whom we met coming up the 
road. We sat down and talked with him by the stone Avail ; 
and he told us of his tribulations and mishaps on the day of 
the battle, attempting to fly south over the mountain with his 
family ; overloading his wagon, and breaking down just as 
the shells began to explode around him ; doing everything 
" wrong-eend fust, he was so sheered." 

We pushed along through the woods to the eastern brow 
of the crest, in order to obtain a general view of the field. 
Emerging from among the trees, a superb scene opened before 
us, — Catoetin Valley, like a poem in blue and gold, with 
its patches of hazy woods, sunlit misty fields, and the Catoetin 
Mountains rolling up ethereal beyond. 

The bridge across Catoetin Creek, half a mile west of Mid- 
dletown, where the fighting began on that memorable Sunday, 
September 14th, 18G2, could be seen half hidden and far 
away below. There our troops came up with the rear-guard 
of the invading army. Driven back from the Creek, tjie 
Rebels massed their forces and formed their line of battle, two 
miles in extent, on this mountain-side, in positions of formida- 
ble strength. Standing on the brow of the commanding crest, 
you would say that ten thousand men, rightly posted, might 
here check the advance of ten times their number, hold the 
gap on the left there, and prevent the steep mountain-sides 
from beino; scaled. 



SUNSET OVER THE ANTIETAM. 43 

In a barren ])a.sture above the slope clinil)e(l by Reno's men 
in face of the Rebel fire, we came upon a little row of o-raves 
under some locust-trees. I took note of a few names lettered 
on the humble head-boards. " John Dunn ; " " T. G. Dix(m, 
Co. C, 23d Regt. O. Y. I. ;'' several more were of tlie 23d Ohio^ 
— the impetuous regiment that had that day its famous hand-to- 
hand conflict with the 23d South Carolina, in which each man 
fought as though the honor of the nation depended upon his 
individual arm. Here lay the victorious fallen. A few liad 
been removed from their rude graves. The head-boards of 
others had been knocked down by cows. We set them up 
again, and left the field to the pensive sound of the cow-bells 
and the teasing song of the locust. 

Walking back to the road through the gap, and surveyino- 
the crests flanking and commanding it, Avhich were held by the 
Rebels, but carried with irresistible impetuosity by the men of 
Burnside's and Hooker's corps, one is still more astonished by ' 
the successful issue of that terrible day's work. All along 
these heights rebel and loyal dead lie buried in graves scarcely 
distinguishable from each other. Long after the battle, ex- 
plorers of the woods were accustomed to find, in hollows and 
behind logs, the remains of some poor fellow, generally a Rebel, 
who, wounded in the fio'ht, or on the retreat, had drao-o-ed 
hnnself to such shelter as he could find, and died there, alone, 
uncared for, in the gloomy and silent wilderness. 

Crampton's Gap, six miles farther south, stormed and carried 
that same Sabbath day by the men of Franklin's corps, I did 
not visit. The sun was setting as Ave turned our faces west- 
ward ; and all the way down the mountain Ave had the An- 
tietam valley before us, darkening and darkening under a sky 
full of the softest twilight tints and tranquillity. 



44 THE FIELD OF ANTIETAM. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE FIELD OF ANTIETAM. 

At seven o'clock the next morning, light and jaunty Lewy 
Smith was snapping his whip again at the tavern-door ; and I 
was soon riding out of the village by his side. 

Our course lay along the line of the Rebel retreat and of the 
advance of the right wing of our army. A ])leasant road, 
under the edge of woods still wet with recent rain, brought us 
to Keedysville, a little cluster of brick and log houses, all of 
which, Lewy told me, were turned into hospitals after the great 
battle. At the farther end of the town is a brick church. 
. " That was a hospital too. Many an arm, a leg, a hand, was 
left there by our boys. There 's a pit behind the church, five 
feet long, five feet deep, and two feet wide, just full of legs 
and arms." 

We rode on until we obtained a view of the pleasant hill- 
sides where Porter lay with his reserves, while the other army- 
corps did the fighting, on the day of Antietam ; then turned 
to the right down a little stream, and past a dam, the waters 
of which glided still and shadowy under fringed banks ; and 
soon came in siglit of the fields where the great fight began. 
There they lay, over the farther bank of the Antietam, some 
green, some ploughed, the latter turning up yellow as x'ipe 
grain in the morning light. 

" We used to could drive all over this country where we 
pleased. The fences were laid down, and it was all trampled 
and cut up with the wagons, and soldiers, and artillery." But 
the fences had been replaced, and now Lewy was obliged to 
keep the open road. 

At a turn we came to a farm-house, near which were a 
number of dilapidated barns and other outbuildings, and some 
old straw stacks. " It was a sight to behold, passing yer after 



HOSPITAL CEMETERY. 



45 



the battle ! " said Lowy Smith, shaking his head sadly at the 
reminiscence. " All in and around these yer buildings, all 
around the hay-stacks, and under the fences, it was just noth- 
ing but groaning, wounded men ! " 

Crossing the yellow-flowing Antietam, we turned up the 
right bank, with its wooded sliores on our riglit, and on our 
left a large cornfield containing not less than forty or fifty 
acres. " There was right smart o' corn all through yer time 
of the battle. Good for the armies, but not for the farmers. 
Come to a cornfield like this, they just turned their horses and 
cattle right into it, and let 'em eat." You fortunate farmers 
of the North and West, so proud and so careful of your well- 
tilled fields never yet broken into in this ruinous fashion, have 
you fully reahzed what war is ? 

Leaving the course of the creek, and crossing the fields 
where the fighting on our extreme right began, we reached 
a still and shady grove, beside which, fenced in from a field, 
was a little oblong burying-ground of something like half an 
acre. In the centre was a plain wooden monument con- 
structed of boards painted white ; the pedestal bearing this 
inscription : — 

'■'■Let no man desecrate this burial-place of our dead;" 
And the side of the shafl, towards the fence, these words : 
" I am the resurrection and the life. He that helieveth in me, 
though he ivere dead, yet shall he live.'' 

This was the hospital cemetery. The graves were close 
together in little rows running across the narrow field. They 
were all overgrown with grass and weeds. Each was marked 
by a small rounded head-board, painted white, and bearing the 
name of the soldier sleeping below. Here is one out of the 
number : — 




Co. G. 12th Mass. 

Died Oct. 14th, 

1862. 



46 THE FIELD OF ANTIETAM. 

As I wrote down tliis name, tlie hens in the f;xrm-yard near 
by were cacklhig jubilantly. The clouds broke also ; a shaft 
of sunlight fell upon the glistening foliage of the grove, and 
slanted down through its beautiful vistas. I looked up from 
the sad rows of patriot graves, and saw the earth around me, 
all around and above the silent niouldering bodies of the slain, 
smilino- sweetly through her misty veil. For Nature will not 
mourn. Nature, serene, majestic, full of faith, makes haste 
to cover the wounds in the Earth's fair bosom, and to smile 
upon them. The graves in our hearts also, which we deemed 
forever desolate, she clothes with the tender verdure of reviv- 
incr hope before Ave are aware, and gilds them with the sun- 
shine of a new love and joy. Blessed be our provident mother 
for this sweet law, but for which the homes in the land, bereft 
by these countless deaths in hospitals and on bloody fields, 
would lie draped in endless mourning. 

Near the monument, in the midst of the level burying-place, 
grew a loftily nodding poke-w'eed, the monarch of his tribe. 
It was more like a tree than a weed. With its roots down 
among the graves, and its hundred hands stretched on high, 
it stood like another monument, holding up to heaven, for a 
sijin, its berries of dark blood. 

Pursuing a road along the ridge in a southwesterly direc- 
tion, Lewy at length reined up his horse in another peaceful 
little grove. Without a word he pointed to the rotting knap- 
sacks and haversacks on the ground, and to the scarred trees. 
I knew tiie spot ; it was the boundary of the bloody " corn- 
field." We had approached from the side on which our boys 
advanced to that frightful conflict, driving the Rebels before 
them, and being driven back in turn, in horrible seesaw, until 
superior Northern pluck and endurance finally prevailed. 

In a field beside the grove we saw a man ploughing, with 
three horses abreast, and a young lad for escort. We noticed 
loose head-boards, overturned by the plough, on the edge of 
the grove, and lying half imbedded in the furrows. This 
man was ploughing over graves ! 

Adjoining the field was the historic cornfield. I walked 
to the edge of it, and waited there for the man to turn his 



THE OLD PLOUGHMAN. 47 

long slow furrow down that waj'. I sat upon the fonce, near 
which was a trench filled with luinumbered Rebel dead. 

" A power of 'em in this yer field ! " said the ploughman, 
coming up and looking over as I questioned him. " A heap 
of Union soldiers too, layin' all about yer. I always skip a 
Union grave when I know it, but sometimes I don't see 'em, 
and I plough 'em up. Eight or ten thousand lays on this farm. 
Rebels and Union together." 

Finding him honest and communicative, 1 wished him to 
c;o over the <iround with me. 

" I would willingly, stranger, but I must keep the team 
go n . • 

I suggested that the boy was big enough to do that. 

" Wal, he kin. Plough round onct," — to the boy, — " or 
let 'em blow, 't ain't go'n' to hurt 'em none." 

So he concluded to accompany me. We got over into the 
" cornfield," late a hog-pasture, and presently stopped at a 
heap of whitening bones. 

" What 's this ? " I said. 

" This yer was a grave. The hogs have rooi?d it up. I 
tol' the ol' man he ought n't to turn the hogs in yer, but he 
said he 'd no other place to put 'em, and he had to do it." 

I picked up a skull lying loose on the ground like a cobble- 
stone. It was that of a young man ; the teeth were all splendid 
and sound. IIow hideously they grinned at me ! and tlie eye- 
sockets were filled with dirt. He was a tall man too, if that 
long thigh-bone was his. 

Torn rags strewed the ground. The old ploughman picked 
up a fragment. 

"This yer was a Union soldier. You may know by the 
blue cloth. But then that ain't always a sign, for the Rebels 
got into our uniform when they had a chance, and got killed 
in it too." 

I turned the skull in my hand, half regretting that I could 
not carry it away with me. My first shuddering aversion to 
the grim relic Avas soon past. I felt a strange curiosity to 
know who had been its hapless owner, carrying it safely 



48 THE FIELD OF ANTIETAM. 

through twenty or more years of hfe to lose it here. Perhaps 
he was even then looking over my shoulder and smiling at it ; 
no longer a perishable mortal, but a spirit imperishable, having 
no more use for such clumsy physical mechanism. The fancy 
came so suddenl}^, and was for an instant so vivid, that I looked 
up, half expecting that ray eyes would meet the mild benig- 
nant eyes of the soldier. And these words came into my mind : 
" It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body." 

Let him Avho has never thought seriously of life look at it 
through the vacant eye-sockets of a human skull. Then let 
him consider that he himself carries just such a thing around 
with him, usefiU here a little while, then to be cast aside. 

" Every face, however full, 
Padded round with flesh and fat, 
Is but modelled on a skull." 

Take the lesson to heart, O Vanity ! It is but a little time, at 
the lonffest, that the immortal soul thou art will animate this 
bone ; but the hour comes quickly when to have been a good 
soldier of the truth on any field, whether resounding with arms, 
or silent Avith the calm strong struggle of love and patience, 
and to have given thy life to the cause, will be sweeter to thee 
than the fatness of the earth and length of days. No, heroic 
soldier ! you I do not pity, though your mortal part lies here 
neglected and at the mercy of swine. 

The cornfield, and another field from which it was separated 
by a fence at the time of the battle, are now thrown together, 
forming a lot of about fifty acres. The upper part was dotted 
with little dry brown cocks of seed-clover. No hogs were 
on it at the time ; they had been turned out, to save the clover- 
seed, I presume, for that was of some consequence. 

We found plenty more bones and skulls of Union soldiers 
rooted up and exposed, as we ascended the ridge. Beside 
some lay their head-boards. I noted the names of a few: 
« Sergt. INIahafFey, Co. C, 9th Regt. P. R. C," for one. 

" The Rebs had all the fence down 'cept a strip by the pike," 
said the ploughman. " That was jist like a sifter. Some of the 
rails have been cut up and carried away for the bullet-holes." 



THE DUNKERS. 49 

He showed me marks still remaining on the fence. Some 
of our soldiers had cut their names upon it ; and on one post 
some pious Roman Catholic had carved the sacred initials : — 

" I. H. S." 

"I reckon that was a soldier's name too," said my honest 
ploughman. And so indeed it was, — Jesus Ilominum Salvator. 

Beyond the pike, between it and the woods, was a narrow 
belt of newly ploughed ground. 

" You see them green spots over yon' covered with weeds ? 
Them are graves that I skipped." In the edge of the woods 
beyond lay two unexploded shells Avhicli relic-hunters had not 
yet picked up. 

"Whilst I was exploring the fields '.ith my good-natured 
ploughman, Lewy Smith brought his horse around by the 
roads. He was waiting for me on the pike. " The last time 
I drove by yer," he said, " there was a nigger ploughing in 
that field, and every time he came to a grave he would just 
reach over his plough, jerk up the head-board, and stick it 
down behind him again as he ploughed along ; and all the time 
he never stopped whistling his tune." 

"VVe drove on to the Dunker church, sometimes called " the 
Schoolhouse," — a square, plain, whitewashed, one-story brick 
building, without steeple, situated in the edge of the woods. 
No one, from its appearance, would take it to be a church ; 
and I find that soldiers who fought here still speak of it as 
" the Schoolhouse." 

" The Dunkers are a sect of plain people," said one of the old 
Dutch settlers. " They don't believe in any wanities. They 
don't believe in war and fifihtino;." 

But their church had got pretty seriously into the fight on 
that occasion. " It was well smashed to pieces ; all made hke 
a riddle ; you could just look in and out where you pleased," 
said Lewy Smith. It had been patched up with brick and 
whitewash, however, and the plain people, who " did not 
believe in wanities," once more held their quiet meetings there. 
I thought much of them as we rode on. A serious, unshaven 

4 



60 THE FIELD OF ANTIETAM. 

thrifty ola-ss of citizens, tliey know well how to get a living, 
and they bear an excellent reputation for honest industry 
throughout the country. Their chief fault seems to be that 
they persist in killing one of man's divinest faculties, — as if 
the sweet and refining sense of beauty would have been given 
us but for a beneficent purpose. At the same time they do 
believe sincerely in solid worldly goods, — as if they too were 
not, after all, quite as much one of the " wanities " ! Think 
of it, my solemn long-bearded friend ; you buy laud, lay out 
your dollar in perishable dust, or you expend it in the cultiva- 
tion of those gifts and graces which, if heaveji is what I take it 
to be, you will find use for when you get there. Xuw which 
do you suppose will prove the better investment ? All of re- 
ligion does not conat..'*. in psalm-singing and sedate behavior. 
But I do wrong to criticise so worthy and unoffending a sect 
of Christians, who are no doubt nearer the kingdom than the 
most we call such ; and I merely set out to say this : while we 
are in the world, all its interests, all its great struggles, concern 
us. We cannot sit indifferent. Non-intervention is unknown 
to the awakened soul. Help the good cause we must, and 
resist the evil ; if we cannot fight, we can pray ; and to think 
of keeping out of the conflict that is raging around us is the 
vainest thing of all, as yonder well-riddled plain people's 
church amply testifies. 

As it was beginning to rain, Lewy Smith carried me on to 
Sharpsburg, and there left me. A more lonesome place even 
than Boonsboro' ; the battle alone renders it in the least inter- 
esting ; a tossed and broken sort of place, that looks as if the 
solid ground-swell of the earth had moved on and jostled it 
since the foundations were laid. As you go up and down 
the hilly streets, the pavements, composed of fragments of 
limestone slabs, thrust up such abrupt fangs and angles at 
you, that it is necessary to tread with exceeding caution. As 
Sharpsburg was in the thick of the fight, the battle-scars it 
still carries add to its dilapidated appearance. On the side 
of the town fronting the Federal line of battle, every house 
bears its marks ; and indeed I do not know that any tiltogether 



SHELTER FROM THE RAIN. 51 

escaped. Many -were well peppered -with bullets, shot and 
shell. The thousand inhabitants of the place had mostly fled 
to the river, where they would liavc been in a sad pli'dit if 
McClellan had followed up the Rebels on their defeat, and 
done his duty by them. Imagine a bent bow, with the strino- 
drawn. The bow is the river, and the string is the Confed- 
erate line after the battle. At the angle of the string is Sharps- 
burg ; and between the string and the bow were the fugitives. 
Fortunately for them, as for the enemy, IMcClellan did not do 
his duty. 

x\fter dinner I started to walk to the bridge, known hence- 
forth and for all time as " Burnside's Bridge," just as the road 
liis corps cut for itself through the forests over the mountain, 
on his way hither from the Sunday fight, is known to every- 
body as " Burnside's Road." 

A shower coming up by the way, I sought shelter under 
the porch of a stone house, situated on a rising bank near the 
edge of the town. I had scarcely mounted the steps when a 
woman appeared, and with cordial hospitality urged me to enter 
the sitting-room. Although the porch was tlie pleasanter 
place, — overlooking the hills and mountains on the east, and 
affording a comfortable wooden bench, where I had thought 
to sit and enjoy the rain, — I accepted her invitation, having 
found by experience that every dweller on a battle-field has 
somethino; interestino; to tell. 

She and her neighbors fled from their homes on Tuesday 
before the battle, and did not return until Friday. She, like 
nearly every person I talked with who had acted a similar 
part, was sorry she did not remain in the cellar of the house. 

" When we came back, all I could do was jist to set right 
down and cry." The house had been plundered, their pro- 
visions, and the household comforts they had been slowly 
getting together for years, had been swept away by the all- 
devouring armies. " Them that stayed at home did not lose 
anything ; but if the soldiers found a house deserted, that they 
robbed." 

I inquired which plundered the most, our men or the Rebels. 



62 THE FIELD OF ANTIETAM. 

" That I can't say, stranger. The Rebels took ; but the 
Yankees took right smart. We left the house full, and when 
we ffot home we had n't a thino; to eat. Some wounded men 
had been fetched in, and they had got all the bedding that Avas 
left, and all our clothing had been torn up for bandages. It 
was a right hard time, stranger ! " — spoken earnestly and with 
tears. " I have n't got Avell over it yet. It killed my old 
father ; he overworked getting the fences up again, and it 
w^ore on him so he died within a year. We are jist getting 
things a little to rights again now, but the place a'n't what it 
was, and never will be again, in my day." 

She showed me, in an adjoining room, a looking-glass 
hanging within an inch or two of a large patched space in the 
wall. 

" That glass was hanging on that nail, jist as it hangs now, 
when a shell come in yer and smashed a bedstead to pieces 
for me on that side of the room, and the glass was n't so much 
as moved." 

Suspecting that I might be keeping her from her work, I 
urged her to return to it, and found she had indeed quitted some 
important household task, because "it did n't seem right to leave 
a strano-er sittino; alone." I arose at once, on makino; that dis- 
covery, telling her I would rest under the porch until the rain 
was over. She appeared for a moment quite distressed, fearing 
lest the subtle law of politeness should somehow suffer from her 
neglect. This woman's sense of hospitality was very strong, 
her whole manner carrying with it an earnest desire to make 
me comfortable and keep me entertained while in her house. 
Although troubled about her kitchen affairs, she seemed far 
more anxious about her duty to me, — as if the accident of 
my being stopped by the rain at her gate had placed her under 
sacred obligations. At last she thought of a happy solution of 
the difficulty. 

" I '11 get some pears and treat ye ! " I begged her not to 
take that trouble for me; but she insisted, repeating with 
pleased eagerness, " Yes, I '11 get some pears and treat ye ! " 

She brought a dish of fruit, and afterwai'ds sent two little 



BURNSIDE'S BRIDGE. 63 

girls, lior nieces, to keep me company wliile I ate. They were 
pretty, intelligent, well-dressed misses of ten and twelve ; the 
eldest of whom opened the conversation by saying, — 

" Right smart o' fruit cher." A phrase which I suspect 
every stranger might not have understood, notwithstanding 
her pi'ettily persuasive smile. South of the Maryland and 
Pennsylvania line, and indeed in the southern counties of 
Pennsylvania, one ceases to hear of a plentip or a good 
deal ; it is always a '''■heap^^'' or '''■ riglit %martr The word 
liere^ along the borders, is pronounced in various w^ays : 
hcre^ rarely; yei\ commonly; hje)\ which is simply yer with 
an aspirate before it ; jei\ when the preceding word ends 
with the sound of c?, and clier after a final t. " Rouojli road 
jer," is the southern for " Rough road here " ; " out cher," 
means, similarly, " out here " ; the final d and t blending with 
the y of yei\ and forming y and e/j, just as we hear " would 
jew " for " would you," and " can't chew " for " can't you," 
everywhere. 

The little girls played their hospitable part very charm- 
ingly, and I was sorry to leave them ; but the rain ceasing, 
I felt obliged to walk on. They took me to theii aunt, whom 
I wished to thank for her kindness. Finding that I had not 
filled my pockets with the pears, as she had invited me to do, 
she brought some grapes and gave me. I bore the purple 
bunches in my hand, and ate them as I walked away from 
the house. They were sweet as the remembered grace of 
hospitality. 

The bridge was a mile farther on. The road strikes the 
creek, and runs several rods alono; the risht bank before cross- 
ing it. If the tourist is surprised at the strength of the posi- 
tions on South Mountain, from which the Rebels were dislodged, 
he will be no less amazed at the contemplation of Burnside's 
achievement here. Above the road as it approaches the bridge, 
and above the creek below the bridge, rises a high steep bank, 
like a bluff. To approach from the opposite side, exposed to 
a concentrated infantry and artillery fire flashing all along this 
crest, — to carry the bridge, and drive back the enemy from 



54 THE FIELD OF ANTIETAM. 

their vantage-gi'ound, — one would say was a feat for the 
heroes of the age of fable. But the truth is, though men are 
slow to receive it, there never was any age, called "of fable," 
or another, better than this, — none that ever produced a more 
heroic race of men. We have worshipped the past long enough ; 
it is time now to look a little into the merits of the present. 
Troy, and Greece, and Rome were admirable in their day, and 
the men of Israel did some doughty deeds ; but the men of 
New England, of the great Middle States, and of the vast 
North-West, what have they done ? The Homeric heroes 
and demigods are in no way superior, except in brag, to the 
hilarious lads of Illinois, or the more serious boys of Massa- 
chusetts. Of materials such as these the poet would have 
made a more resounding Iliad. 

That Burnside's command could ever have crossed this 
brido-e, from the high banks on the other side to the steep 
banks on this, in the face of superior numbers pouring their 
deadly volleys upon them, that is what astonishes you : and 
what grieves you is this : that reinforcements were not sent 
to enable him to hold what he gained. If Porter, Ayho had 
the reserves, had been a man of right courage and patriotism, 
or anything but a pet of the commanding general, he would 
have gone into the fight when needed, — for reserves were not 
mvented merely to be kept nice and choice, — and the results 
of that day would have been very different. 

I spent some hours about the bridge, the Antietam Creek 
singing all the while its liquid accomi)animent to my thoughts. 
It sang the same song that day, but its peaceful music was 
drowned by the roar and clash of the conflict. I sat down on 
a rock and watched a flock of buzzards perched on the limbs of 
a dead tree, looking melancholy, — resembling, to my mind, 
greedy camp-followers and army speculators, who remembered 
with pensive regret the spoils of the good old war-days. 

The bridge is narrow, affording space for only one vehicle 
at a time. It is built of stone, and rests on two solid hutments 
and two rounded piers. There are woods on both sides of the 
stream. On the left bank they stand a little back from it ; 



ANTIETAM NATIONAL BUllYING-GROUND. 55 

on the rio-ht, they cover the side of the bhifF beh)\v the bridge. 
The trees all :dong here were well scari'ed with shot. Half 
a mile below the bridge the creek makes a bold turn to the 
right, and doubles back upon itself, forming a loop, then 
sweeps away to the south, between a wooded hill on the west 
and a magnificent growth of willows massing their delicate 
green and drooping foliage along the low opposite shore. 

Returning to the village, I visited the spot chosen as a 
national cemetery for the slain. The ground had been pur- 
chased, but work upon it had not yet commenced. As Penn- 
sylvania gave the soil for the Gettysburg Cemetery, so Mary- 
land gives the soil for this ; while each State will defray its 
portion of future expenses. In the Antietam cemetery it is 
understood that the Rebel dead are to be included. Many 
object to this ; but I do not. Skeletons, rooted up by hogs, 
and blanching in the open fields, are a sight not becoming a 
country that calls itself Christian. Be they the bones of Pa- 
triots or Rebels, let them be carefully gathered up and decently 
interred without delay. 

The Antietam National Burying-Ground also adjoins an old 
town cemetery. It is situated on the right hand, at the sum- 
mit of the road, as you go up out of Sharpsburg towards 
Boonsboro'. Here let them rest together, they of the good 
cause, and they of the evil ; I shall be content. For neither 
was the one cause altogether good, nor was the other alto- 
gether bad : the holier being clouded by much ignorance and 
selfishness, and the darker one brightened here and there 
with glorious flashes of self-devotion. It was not, rightly 
speaking, these brothers that were at war. The conflict was 
waged between two great principles, — one looking towards 
liberty and human advancement, the other madly drawing the 
world back to barbarism and the dark ages. America Was 
the chessboard on which the stupendous game was played, and 
those we name Patriots and Rebels were but as the pawns. 

Great was the day of Antietam. Three thousand of the 
enemy were buried on the field. We had two thousand 
killed, upwards of nine thousand four hundred wounded, and 



56 THE FIELD OF ANTIETAM. 

more than a thousand misshig. Between the SAveet dawn 
and the bloody dusk of that dread day there fell twenty-five 
THOUSAND MEN ! Can the imagination conceive of such 
slaughter ? 

And, after all, the striking fact about Antietam is this, — *- 
that it was a great opportunity lost. The premature surren- 
der of Harper's Ferry, which set free the force besieging it, 
and enabled the enemy to outnumber us on the field, — for 
Stonewall Jackson w'as as anxious to get into the figlit as Fitz 
John Porter was to keep out of it, — and the subsequent inertia 
of the General commanding the United States forces ; these 
two causes combined to save the Confederate army from an- 
nihilation. No such opportunity for crushing the Rebellion 
at a blow had been offered, nor was any such again offered, 
— not even at Gettysburg, for the enemy there had no coil- 
ing river in their rear to entangle them, and we had no fresh 
troops to launch upon them, — nor at any period afterwards, 
until Grant consummated that long-desired object ; God's good 
time having not yet come. 



BENNERHALLS. 57 



CHAPTER VI. 

DOWN THE RIVER TO HARPER'S FERRY. 

Sharpsburg is not a promising place to spend the night 
in, and I determined to leave it that evening. In search of a 
private conveyance^ I entered a confectioner's shop, and asked 
a young lady behind the counter if she knew any pei'son who 
would take me to Harper's Ferry. 

" Yes ; Mr. Bennerhalls," she replied ; " I reckon ye can 
get him." 

She gave me particular directions for finding his house, and 
I went up one of the broken pavements " fanged with murder- 
ous stones," in search of him. To my sm'prise I was told that 
]\Ir. Bennerhalls did not live on that street ; farther, that no 
person of that name was known in Sharpsburg. I returned to 
the confectioner's shop. 

" You said 3Ir. Bennerhalls ? " 

"Yes, sir; Mr. Bennerhalls, and Mr. Cra.nerhalls, and 
Mr. Joneshalls ; I should think you might get one of them." 

I fancy the young lady must have seen a smile on my 
countenance just then. Bennerhalls, Cramerhalls, Joneshalls, 
— what outlandish cognomens were these ? Did half the 
family names in Sharpsburg rejoice in the termination halls ? 

"I hvyiv Mr. Joneshalls," said the young lady, as I stood 
solving the doubt, probably with an amused expression Avhich 
she mistook for sarcastic incredulity. 

" Joneshalls " I had never heard of. But I liad heard of 
Jones. Thanks to that somewhat ftimiliar name, I had found 
a clue to the mystery. " Jones hauls" thought I, that is to 
say, Jones hauls people over the road in his wagon. 

And the first-mentioned individual was not Bennerhalls at 
all, but one Benner who hauled. 



58 DOWN THE RIVER TO HARPER'S FERRY. 

I thanked the young lady for her courtesy, — and I am sure 
she must have thought me a very pleasant man, — and went 
to find Mr. Banner without the halls. 

No difficulty this time. He was sitting on a doorstep, where 
he had perhaps heard me before inquiring up and down for Mr. 
Bennerhalls, and scratched his head over the odd patronymic. 

" Yes, I have hosses, and I haul sometimes, but I can't put 
one on 'em over that road to Harper's Ferry, stranger, no- 
how ! " 

I fot no more satisfaction out of Cramer, and still less out 
of Jones, who informed me that not only he would not go, but 
he did n't believe there was a man in Sharpsburg that Avould. 

I returned to the tavern, aiKl appealed to the landlord, a 
pleasant and very obliging man, although not so well versed as 
some in the art of keeping a hotel. To my surprise, after 
what Jones had told me, he said, " if I could find no one else 
to haul me, he would." 

At five P. M. Ave left Sharpsburg in an open buggy under 
a sky that threatened rain. Black clouds and thunder-gusts 
were all around us. The mountains were wonderful to behold, 
the nearer slopes lying in shadow, sombre almost to blackness, 
while beyond, rendered all the more glorious by that contrast, 
rose the loveliest sun-smitten summits, basking in the peace of 
paradise. Beyond these still were black-capped peaks, about 
which played uncertain waves of light, belts and bars of softest 
indescribable colors, perpetually shifting, brightening, and van- 
ishing in mist. It was like a momentary glimpse of heaven 
through the stormy portals of the world. Then down came 
the deluging rack and enveloped all. 

Through occasional spatters of rain, angrily spitting squalls, 
we whipped on. It was a fleet horse my friend drove. He 
was pleased to hear me praise him. 

" That 's a North-Carolina horse. I brought him home with 
me. 

" You have been in the army then ? " 

And out came the interesting fact that I was riding with 
Captain Speaker of the First Maryland Cavalry, a man who 
had seen service, and had things to tell. 



CAPTAIN SPEAKER'S NARRATIVE. 59 

Everybody remembers, in connection with the shameful 
surrender of Harper's Ferry just before the battle of Antietam, 
the brilliant episode of tAventy-two hundred Federal cavalry 
cutting their way out, and capturing a part of one of Long- 
street's trains on their escape. Captain Speaker was the 
leader of that expedition. 

" I was second lieutenant of the First Maryland Cavalry at 
the time. I knew Colonel Davis very Avell ; and when I heard 
Harper's Ferry was to be surrendered, I remarked to him that 
I would not be surrendered with it alive. He asked what I 
would do. ' Cut my way out,' said I. When he asked what 
I meant, I told him I believed I could not only get out myself, 
but that I could pilot out with safety any number of cavalry 
that woukl take the same risk and go with me. I had lived in 
the country all my life, and knew every part of it. Colonel 
Davis saw that I was in earnest, and knew what I was talking 
about. The idea just suited him, and he applied to Colonel 
IMiles for permission to put it into execution. Colonel Miles 
was not a man to think much of such projects, and he was 
inclined to laugh at it. ' Who is this Lieutenant Speaker,' 
said he, ' who is so courageous ? ' Colonel Davis said ho 
knew me, and had confidence in my plan. ' It 's all talk,' said 
Miles ; ' put liiin to the test, and he '11 back down.' 

"■' Just try him,' said Davis. 

" So Miles wrote on a piece of paper, — 

" ' Lieutenant Speaker, will you take charge of a cavalry 
force and lead it through the enemy's lines ? ' 

" I just wrote under it, on the same piece of paper, ' Yes, 
with pleasure ; ' signed my name, and sent it back to him." 

At ten o'clock the same night they started. It was Sun- 
day, the 14th of September, the day of the battle of South 
Mountain. The party consisted of twenty-two lumdred cavalry 
and a number of mounted ciAalians who took advantage of 
the expedition to escape from the town before it was sur- 
rendered. Lieutenant Speaker and Colonel Davis rode side 
by side at the head of the column. They crossed on the pon- 
toon bridge, which formed the military connection between 



60 DOWN THE RIVER TO HARPER'S FERRY. 

Harper's Ferry and Maryland Heights, and turned up the 
road which runs between the canal and the Heights, riding at 
full charge along the left bank of the Potomac. It was a wild 
road ; the night was dark ; only the camp-fires on the moun- 
tain were visible ; and there was no sound but the sAvift clatter 
of thousands of galloping hoofs, and the solitary rush of the 
Potomac waters. 

Near a church, four miles from the Ferry, Speaker and 
Davis, who M'ere riding ahead of the party, were challenged 
by the Rebel pickets. 

" Who goes there ? " 

" Friends to the guard." 

" What command ? " 

" Second Virginia Cavalry," said Colonel Davis, — which 
was true, the Second Virginia Union Cavalry being of the 
party, while the Second Virginia Rebel Cavalry was also in 
the vicinity. " Who are you ? " 

" Louisiana Tigers." 

" All right. We are out scouting." 

" All right," said the pickets. 

The leaders rode back, formed their party at a short distance, 
save the word, and charo;ed. Thev Avent throufrh the Rebel 
line like an express-train. A few shots were fired at them 
by the astonished pickets, but they got through almost Avithout 
loss. Three horses Avere killed and three men dismounted, 
but the latter escaped up the mountain side, and afterAvards 
made their AA'ay safely into the Union lines. 

They galloped on to Sharpsbui'g, keeping the same road all 
the Avay by Avhich Captain Speaker Avas noAV conveying me to 
the Ferry. The enemy held Sharpsburg. Fortunately in 
every street and by-road Speaker was at home. He called 
up a w^ell-knoAvn Union citizen, from AAdiom he obtained im- 
portant information. " The Rebels are in strong force on 
the HagerstoAvn Road. They have heavy batteries, too, posted 
on the Williamsport Pike." There Avas then but one thing to 
do. " DoAvn Avith the fences and take to the fields," said the 
pilot of the party. 



CAPTAIN SPEAKER'S NARRATIVE. 61 

This they accordingly did ; — tramp, tramp, in the darkness, 
by cross-roads and through fields and woods. 

" "We struck the pike between Hagerstown and Williams- 
port about two o'clock. We came to a halt pretty quick, 
though, for there was a Rebel wagon-train several miles in 
length, passing along the pike. There were no fences ; and 
the woods were clear and beautiful for our purpose. Our line 
was formed along by the pike, extending some three-quarters of 
a mile. Then avc charged. The first the guards and drivers 
knew, there were sabres at their heads ; and all they had to do 
was to turn their w^agons right about and go with us. We 
captured over seventy wagons, all the rear of the train. They 
had to travel a little faster in the other direction than they had 
been going, so that some of the wagons broke down by the 
way; but the rest we got safely off." 

It was just daylight when they arrived at Greencastle and 
turned the wagons over to the Federal quartermaster there. 
" Then you should have seen each fellow tumble himself off 
his horse ! Remember, we had been fighting at the Ferry, 
and this was the third night we had had no sleep. Each man 
just took a turn of the bridle around his wrist, and dropped 
down on the pavement in the street, anywdiere, and in three 
minutes was fast asleep. 

" Colonel Davis and I found a cellar-door, softer than stones, 
to lie on, and there we dropped. I was asleep as soon as my 
head struck the board. But it could n't have beer, five minutes 
before I was woke up by somebody pulling the bridle from my 
wrist. 

" ' What do you w^ant ? ' 

" ' Want your horse ; want you ; want to give you some 
breakfast.' 

" I got my eyes open ; it was broad day then ; and it was a 
beautiful sight ! Everybody in Greencastle w^as crowding to 
see the cavalry fellows that had cut their way through the 
Rebel lines. The Colonel and I were surrounded with ladies 
bringing us breakfast. I tell you, i.t was beautiful ! " And the 
Captain's eyes glistened at the remembrance. 

" We were hungry enough ! But I said, ' Just give my horse 



62 DOWN THE RIVER TO HARPER'S FERRr.' 

here something to eat first ; then I '11 eat.' ' Certainly.' 
And they were going to take him away from me, to some 
stable. ' Never mind about that,' said I. ' Just bring your 
oats and empty them down here anywhere ; he 's used to 
eating off the ground.' The oats yvere not slow coming ; and 
Colonel Davis and I and our horses had breakfast together, 
with the ladies looking on. I tell you, it was beautiful ! " 

It is eleven miles from Sharpsburg to Harper's Ferry. After 
striking the Potomac, we continued on down its left bank, with 
the canal between us and the river on one side, and Maryland 
Heights, rising even more and more rugged and abrupt, on the 
other ; until, as we approached tlie bridge at the Ferry, we 
looked up through the stormy dusk at mountain crags rising 
precipitous several hundred feet above our heads. Crossing 
the new iron bridge, near the ruins of the old one destroyed by 
the Rebels, Captain Speaker landed me near the end of it on 
the Virginia side. 

"Where is the hotel?" 1 asked, looking round with some 
dismay at the dismal prospect. 

" That is it, the only hotel at Harper's Ferry now," — 
showing me a new, unpainted, four-story wooden building, 
which looked more like soldiers' barracks than a hotel. There 
was not a window-blind or shutter to be seen. The main 
entrance from the street was through a bar-room where merry 
men were clicking glasses, and sucking dark-colored stuff 
through straws. And this was a " first-class hotel kept on the 
European plan." I mention it as one of the results of war, 
— as an illustration of the mushroom style of building which 
springs up in the track of desolation, to fill temporarily the 
place of the old that has been swept away and of the better 
2;rowth to come. 

One thing, however, consoled me. The hotel stood on the 
banks of the Potomac, and I thought if I could get a room 
overlooking the river and commanding a view of the crags 
opposite, all would be well ; for often the mere sight of a 
mountain and a stream proves a solace for saddest things. 

After supper a " room " was shown me, which turned out 
to be a mere bin to stow guests in. There was no paper on 



SLEEP UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 63 

the walls, no carpet on the rough board floor, and not so niucli 
as a nail to hang a hat on. The bed was furnished with sheets 
which came down just below a man's knees, and a mattress 
which had the appearance of being stuffed with shingles. 
Finding it impossible, by dint of shouting and pounding, (for 
there was no bell,) or even by visiting the office, to bring a 
servant to my assistance, I went on a marauding expedition 
through the unoccupied rooms, and carried off a chair, a dress- 
ing-table, and another bed entire. This I placed on my 
mattress, hoping thereby to improve the feeling of it, — a fruit- 
less experiment, however : it was only adding a few more 
shingles. Luckily I had a shawl with me. Never, — let me 
caution thee, O fellow-traveller, — never set out on a long 
journey without a good stout shawl. Such an appendage 
answers many purposes : a garment on a raw and gusty day, a 
blanket by night, a cushion for the scat, a pillow for the head, 
— to these and many like comfortable uses it is speedily applied 
by its grateful possessor. Mine helped to soften the asperi- 
ties of my bed that night, and the next day served as a windo^v- 
curtain. 

Yet no devices availed to render the Shenandoah House 
a place favorable to sleep. On the river-side, close by the door, 
ran the track of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. How often 
during the night the trains passed I cannot now compute ; each 
approaching and departing with clatter and clang, and shouts 
of men and bell-ringing and sudden glares of light, and the 
voice of the steam-whistle projecting its shrill shriek into the 
ear of horrified night, and setting the giant mountains to 
tossing and retosslno; the echo like a ball. 

The next morning I was up at dawn refreshing my eyesight 
with the natural beauties of the place. It was hard to believe 
that those beauties had been lying latent around me during 
all the long, wearisome night. But so It is ever ; we see so 
little of God's great plan ! The dull life we live, close and 
dark and narrow as It seems. Is surrounded by invisible reali- 
ties, waiting only for the rays of a spiritual daw^n to hght them 
up Into grandeur and glory. 



64 AROUND HARPER'S FERRY. 



CHAPTER VII. 

AROUND HARPER'S FERRY. 

At Harper's Ferry the Potomac and Shenandoali unite their 
waters and flow through an enormous gap in the Blue Ridge. 
The angle of land thus formed is a sort of promontory ; around 
the base of Avhich, just where the rivers meet, the curious little 
old town is built. Higher up the promontory lie Bolivar 
Heights. On the north, just across the Potomac from the 
Ferry, rise IMaryland Heights ; while on the east, across the 
Shenandoah, are Loudon Heights, an equally precipitous and 
lofty crag. With sublime rocky fronts these two mountains 
stand razino; at each other across the river which has evi- 
dently forced its way through them here. Just where the 
streams are united the once happily wedded mountains are 
divorced. No doubt there was once a stupendous cataract 
here, pouring its shining sheet towards the morning sun, from 
a vast inland sea ; for the tourist still finds, far up the steep 
face of the mountains, dimples which in past ages ceaselessly 
whirling water-eddies made. In some of these scooped places 
sand and smooth-worn pebbles still remain. But the moun- 
tain-wall has lono; since been sundered, and the inland sea 
drained off; the river forcing a way not only for itself but for 
the turnpike, railroad, and canal, fore-ordained in the begin- 
ning to appear in the ripeness of time and follow the river's 
course. 

Thus the town, as you perceive, is situated in the midst of 
scenery which should make it a favorite place of summer re- 
sort. The cliflPs are picturesquely tufted, and tasselled, and 
draped with foliage, boughs of trees, and festoons of wild vines, 
through which here and there upshoot the perpendicular col- 



MARYLAND HEIGHTS. 65 

amns of some bold crag, softened into beauty by the many- 
colored lichens tiiat stud its sides. I count an evening walk 
under Loudon Heights, with the broad, sprawling river 
hoarsely babbling over its rocky bed on one side, and the still 
precipices soai*ing to heaven on the other, — and the narrow 
stony road cut round their base lying before me, untrodden at 
that hour by any human foot save my own, — I count that 
lonely walk amid the cool, dewy scents stealing out of the un- 
dergrowth, and the colors of the evening sky gilding the cliffs, 
as one of the pleasantest of my life. What is there, as you 
look up at those soaring summits and the low clouds sailing 
silently over them, that fills the heart so full ? 

The morning after my arrival I climbed Maryland Heights 
by the winding military road which owes its existence to the 
war. I have seen nothing since the view from Mount Wash- 
ington to be compared with the panorama which unrolled itself 
around me as I ascended. Pictures of two States were there, 
indescribably tinted in the early morning light, — beautiful 
Maryland, still more beautiful Vii'ginia, with the green Poto- 
mac A^alley marking the boundary between. On the Mary- 
land side were the little valleys of the Monocacy and the 
Antietam. Opposite lay the valley of the Shenandoah, dotted 
with trees, its green fields spotted with the darker green of 
groves, a vast tract stretching away into a realm of hazy light, 
belted with sun and mist, and bounded by faint outlines of 
mountains so soft they seemed built of ether but a little more 
condensed than the blue of the sky. 

Yet it was war and not beauty which led man to these 
heights. The timber which once covered them was cut away 
when the forts were constructed, in order to afford free range 
for the guns ; and a thick undergrowth now takes its place. 
There are strong works on the summit, the sight of which 
kindles anew one's indignation at the imbecility which sur- 
rendered them, with Harper's Ferry and a small army, at a 
time when such an act was sufficient to prolong the war per- 
haps for years. 

It is a steep mile and more by the road from the Ferry to 
5 



66 AROUND HARPER'S FERRY. 

the top of the chffs : a mile which richly repays the travel. 
Yet one need not go so far nor climb so high to see the beau- 
ties of the place. Whichever way you turn, river, or rock, or 
wild woods charm the eye. The Potomac comes down from 
its verdant bowers gurgling among its innumerable rocky 
islets. On one side is the canal, on the other the race which 
feeds the government works, each tumbling its yeasty super- 
flux over waste-weir walls into the river. With the noise of 
those snowy cascades sweetly blends the note of the boatman's 
bugle approaching the locks. The eye ranges from the river 
to the crags a thousand feet above, and all along the moun- 
tain side, gracefully adorned with sparse timber, feathery 
boughs and trees loaded down with vines, and is never weary 
of the picture. At evening, you sit watching the sunset colors 
fade, until the softened gray and dusky-brown tints of the 
cliffs deepen into darkness, and the moon comes out and silvers 
them. 

But while the region presents such features of beauty and 
grandeur, the town is the reverse of agreeable. It is said to 
have been a pleasant and picturesque place formerly. The 
streets were well graded, and the hill-sides above were graced 
with terraces and trees. But war has changed all. Freshets 
tear down the centre of the streets, and the dreary hill-sides pre- 
sent only ragged growths of weeds. The town itself lies half 
in ruins. The government works were duly destroyed by the 
Rebels ; of tlie extensive buildings which comprised the armory, 
rolhng-mills, foundry, and machine-shops, you see but little 
more than the burnt-out, empty shells. Of the bridge across 
the Shenandoah only the ruined piers are left ; still less re- 
mains of the old bridge over the Potomac. And all about the 
town are rubbish, and filth, and stench. 

Almost alone of the government buildings, John Brown's 
"Engine-house" has escaped destruction. It has come out 
of the ordeal of war terribly bruised and battered, it is true, 
its windows blackened and patched like the eyes of a pugilist ; 
but there it still stands, with its brown brick walls and little 
wooden belfry, like a monument which no Rebel hands were 



JOHN BROWN. (57 

permitted to demolish. It is now used as a storehouse for 
arms. 

The first time I visited this scene of the first blood shed in 
the great civil war, which, although so few dreamed of it, 
was even then beginning, — for John Brown's flaming deed 
was as a torch flung into the ready-heaped combustibles of the 
rebellion, — while I stood viewing the spot with an interest 
which must have betrayed itself, a genial old gentleman, com- 
ing out of the government repair-shop close by, accosted me. 
AVe soon fell into conversation, and he told me the story of 
John Brown at Harper's Ferry. 

" So they took the old man and hung him ; and all the time 
the men that did it were plotting treason and murder by the 
wholesale. They did it in a hurry, because if they delayed, 
they would n't have been able to hang him at all. A strong 
current of public feeling was turning in his favor. Such a 
sacrifice of himself set many to thinking on the subject who 
never thought before ; many who had to acknowledge in their 
hearts that slavery was wrong and that old John Brown was 
right. I speak what I know, for I was here at the time. I 
have lived in Harper's Ferry fifteen years. I was born and 
bred in a slave State, but I never let my love of the institu- 
tion blind me to everything else. Slavery has been the curse 
of this country, and she is now beginning to bless the day she 
was delivered from it." 

" Are there many people here who think as you do ? " 

" Enough to carry the day at the polls. The most of them 
are coming round to right views of negro suftrage, too. That 
is the only justice for the blacks, and it is the only safety for 
us. The idea of allowing the loyal colored population to be 
represented by the whites, the most of whom were traitors, — 
of letting a Rebel just out of the Confederate army vote, and 
telling a colored man just out of the Union army that he has 
no vote, — the idea is so perfectly absurd that the Rebels them- 
selves must acknowledge it." 

I was hardly less interested in the conversation of an intel- 
ligent colored waiter at the hotel. He had formerly been held 



68 AROUND HARPER'S FERRY. 

as a slave in the vicinity of Staunton. At the close of the 
war he came to the Ferry to find employment. 

" There was n't much chance for me up there. Besides, I 
came near losing my life before I got away. You see, the 
masters, soon as they found out they could n't keep their slaves, 
began to treat them about as bad as could be. Then, because 
I made use of this remark, that I did n't think we colored folks 
ought to be blamed for what was n't our fault, for we did n't 
make the war, and neither did we declare ourselves free, — 
just because I said that, not in a saucy way, but as I say it 
to you now, one man put a pistol to my |iead, and was going 
to shoot me. I got away from him, and left. A great many 
came away at the same time, for it was n't possible for us to 
stay there." 

" Now tell me candidly," said I, " how the colored people 
themselves behaved." 

" Well, just tolerable. They were like a bird let out of a 
cao;e. You know how a bird that has been lonof in a caoe 
"v\'ill act when the door is opened ; he makes a curious flutter- 
ing for a little while. It was just so with the colored people. 
They didn't know at first what to do with themselves. But 
they got sobered pretty soon, and they are behaving very 
decent now." 

Harper's Ferry affords a striking illusti-ation of the folly of 
secession. The government works here e;ave subsistence to 
several hundred souls, and Avere the life of the place. The 
attempt to overturn the government failed ; but the govern- 
ment works, together with their own prosperity, the mad fa- 
natics of Harper's Ferry succeeded easily enough in destroying. 
*' The place never will be anything again," said Mr. B., of 
the repair-shop, " unless the government decides to rebuild 
the armory, — and it is doubtful if that is ever done." 

Yet, with the grandeur of its scenery, the tremendous water- 
power afforded by its two rushing rivers, and the natural ad- 
vantage it enjoys as the key to the fertile Shenandoah Valley, 
Harper's Ferry, redeemed from slavery, and opened to North- 
ern enterprise, should become a beautiful and busy town. 



FELLOW-PASSENGERS. 69 



CHAPTER VIII. 

A TRIP TO CHARLESTOWN". 

One morning I took the train np the Valley to Cliarlestown, 
distant from Harper's Ferry eight miles. 

The railroad was still in the hands of the government. 
There wex'e military guards on the platforms, and about an 
equal mixture of Loyalists and Rebels within the cars. Fur- 
loughed soldiers, returning to their regiments at Winchester or 
Staunton, occupied seats with Confederate officers just out of 
their uniforms. The strong, dark, defiant, self-satisfied face 
typical of the second-rate " chivalry," and the good-natured, 
shrewd, inquisitive physiognomy of the Yankee speculator 
going to look at Southern lands, were to be seen side by side, 
in curious contrast. There also rode the well-dressed wealthy 
planter, wdio had been to Washington to solicit pardon for his 
treasonable acts, and the humble freedman returning to the 
home from which he had been driven by violence, when the 
war closed and left him free. Mothers and daughters of the 
first families of Vu'ginia sat serene and uncomplaining in 
the atmosphere of mothers and daughters of the despised race, 
late their slaves or their neighbors', but now citizens like them- 
selves, free to go and come, and as clearly entitled to places in 
the government train as the proudest dames of the land. 

We passed through a region of country stamped all over 
by the devastating heel of war. For miles not a fence or 
cultivated field was visible. 

" It is just like this all the way up the Shenandoah Valley," 
said a gentleman at my side, a Union man from Winchester. 
" The wealthiest people with us are now the poorest. With 
hundi-eds of acres they can't raise a dollar. Their slaves have 



70 A TRIP TO CHARLESTOWN. 

left tlieni, and they have no money, even if they have the dis- 
position, to hire the freed people." 

I suggested that farms, under such circumstances, should he 
for sale at low rates. 

" They should he ; hut your Southern aristocrat is a mono- 
maniac on the subject of owning land. He will part with his 
acres about as willingly as he will part with his life. If the 
Valley had not been the best part of Virginia, it would long 
ago have been spoiled by the ruinous system of agriculture in 
use here. Instead of tilling thoroughly a small farm, a man 
fancies he is doing a wise thing by half tilling a large one. 
Slave labor is always slovenly and unprofitable. But everything 
is being revolutionized now. Northern men and northern 
methods are coming into this Valley as sure as water runs down- 
hill. It is the greatest corn, wheat, and grass country in the 
world. The only objection to it is that in spots the limestone 
crops out a good deal. There was scarcely anything raised 
this season except grass ; you could see hundreds of acres of 
that wavino; breast-high Avithout a fence." 

At the end of a long hour's ride we arrived at Charlestown, 
chiefly interesting to me as the place of John Brown's martyr- 
dom. We aliffhted from the train on the edge of boundless 
unfenced fields, into whose melancholy solitudes the desolate 
streets emptied themselves — rivers to that ocean of weeds. 
The town resembled to my eye some unprotected female sitting 
sorrowful on the wayside, in tattered and faded apparel, with 
unkempt tresses fallen negligently about features which might 
once have been attractive. 

On the steps of a boarding-house I found an acquaintance 
whose countenance gleamed with pleasure " at sight," as he 
said, " of a single loyal face in that nest of secession." He had 
been two or three days in the place, waiting for luggage which 
had been miscarried. 

" They are all Rebels here, — all Rebels ! " he exclaimed, as 
he took his cane and walked with me. " They are a pitiably 
poverty-stricken set; there is no money in the place, and 
scarcely anything to eat. We have for breakfast salt-fish, 



SCENE OF JOHN BROWN'S TRIAL. 71 

fried potatoes, and treason. Fried potatoes, treason, and salt- 
fish for dinner. At supper the fare is slightly varied, and Ave 
have treason, salt-fish, fried potatoes, and a little more treason. 
My landlady's daughter is Southern fire incarnate ; and she 
illustrates Southern politeness by abusing Northern people and 
the government fi'om morning till night, for my especial edifi- 
cation. Sometimes I venture to answer her, when she flies at 
me, figuratively speaking, lilve a cat. The women are not the 
only out-spoken llebels, although they are the worst. The 
men don't hesitate to declai'e their sentiments, in season and 
out of season." My friend concluded with this figure : " The 
war-feelino- here is like a burning bush with a wet blanket 
wrapped around it. Looked at from the outside, the fire seems 
quenched. But just peep under the blanket, and there it is, 
all alive, and eating, eating in. The wet blanket is the pres- 
ent government policy ; and every act of conciliation shown the 
Rebels is just letting in so much air to feed the fire." 

A short Avalk up into the centre of the town took us to the 
scene of John Brown's trial. It was a consolation to see that 
the jail had been laid in ashes, and that the court-house, 
where that mockery of justice was performed, was a, ruin 
abandoned to rats and toads. Four massy white .brick pillars, 
still standing, supported a riddled roof, through which God's 
blue skv and gracious sunshine smiled. The main portion of 
the buildmg had been literally torn to pieces. In the floorless 
hall of justice rank weeds were growing. Names of Union 
soldiers were scrawled along the walls. No torch had been 
applied to the wood-work, but the work of destruction had been 
performed by the hands of hilarious soldier-boys ripping up 
floors and pulUng down laths and joists to the tune of " John 
Brown," — the swelling melody of the song, and the accom- 
paniment of crashing partitions, reminding the citizens, who 
thought to have destroyed the old hero, that his soul was 
marching on. 

It was also a consolation to know that the court-house and 
jail Avould probably never be rebuilt, the county-seat having 
been removed from Charlestown to Shepherdstown — "for- 



72 A TRIP TO CHARLESTOWN. 

ever," say the resolute loyal citizens of JeiFerson County, who 
refuse to vote it back again. 

As we were taking comfort, reflecting how unexpectedly 
at last justice had been done in that court-house, the towns- 
people passed on the sidewalk, " daughters and sons of beauty," 
for they were mostly a fine-looking, spirited class ; one of whom, 
at a question which I put to him, stopped quite willingly and 
talked with us. I have seldom seen a handsomer young 
face, a steadier eye, or more decided poise and aplomb; 
neither have I ever seen the outward garment of courtesy so 
plumply filled out with the spirit of arrogance. His brief 
replies, spoken with a pleasant countenance, yet Avith short, 
sharp, downward inflections, were like pistol-shots. Very 
evidently the death of John Brown, and the war that came 
swooping down in the old man's path to avenge him, and to 
accomplish the Avork wherein he failed, were not pleasing 
subjects to this young southern blood. And no wonder. His 
coat had an empty sleeve. The arm which should have been 
there had been lost fighting against his country. His almost 
savage answers did not move me ; but all the while I looked 
with compassion at his fine young face, and that pendent idle 
sleeve. ■ He had fought against his country; his conntry had 
won ; and he was of those who had lost, not arms and legs 
only, but all they had been madly fighting for, and more, — 
prosperity, prestige, power. His beautiful South was devas- 
tated, and her soil drenched with the best blood of her young 
men. Whether regarded as a crime or a virtue, the folly of 
making war upon the mighty North was now demonstrated, 
and the despised Yankees had proved conquerors of the chiv- 
alry of the South. " Well may your thoughts be bitter," my 
heart said, as I thanked him for his information. 

To my surprise he appeared mollified, his answers losing 
their explosive quality and sharp downward inflection. He 
even seemed inclined to continue the conversation ; and as 
we passed on, we left him on the sidewalk looking after us 
wistfully, as if the spirit working within him had still some 
word to say different from any he had yet spoken. What his 



JOHN BROWN. 73 

secret thoughts were, standing there with his danghng sleeve, 
it would be interesting to know. 

Walking on through the town, we came to other barren 
and open fields on the farther side. Here we engaged a brioht 
young colored girl to guide us to the spot where John Brown's 
gallows stood. She led us into the wilderness of weeds, waist- 
high to her as she tramped on, parting them before her with 
her hands. The country all around us lay utterly desolate, 
without enclosures, and without cultivation. We seemed to 
be striking out into the rolling prairies of the West, except 
that these fields of ripening and fading weeds had not the sum- 
mer freshness of the prairie-grass. A few scattering groves 
skirted them ; and here and there a fenceless road drew its 
winding, dusty line away over the arid hills. 

" This is about where it was," said the girl, after searchinn- 
some time among the tall weeds. " Nobody knows now just 
where the gallows stood. There was a tree here, but that 
has been cut down and carried away, stump and roots and 
all, by folks that wanted something to remember John Brown 
by. Every soldier took a piece of it, if 't was only a little 
chip." So widely and deeply had the dying old hero im- 
pressed his spirit upon his countrymen ; aflTording the last great 
illustration of the power of Truth to render even the gallows 
venerable, and to glorify an ignominious death. 

I stood long on the spot the girl pointed out to us, amid the 
gracefully drooping golden-rods, and looked at the same sky 
old John Brown looked his last upon, and the same groves, 
and the distant Blue Ridge, the sight of whose cerulean sum- 
mits, clad in Sabbath tranquillity and softest heavenly light, 
must have conveyed a sweet assurance to his soul. 

Then I turned and looked at the town, out of which flocked 
the curious crowds to witness his death. Over the heads of the 
spectators, over the heads of the soldiery surrounding him, his 
eye ranged until arrested by one strangely prominent object. 
There it still stands on the outskirts of the town, between it 
and the fields, — a church, pointing its silent finger to heaven, 
and recalling to the earnest heart those texts of Scripture from 



74 A TRIP TO CHARLESTOWN. 

"vvhich John Brown drew his inspiration, and for the truth of 
which he wilhngly gave his hfe. 

I had the curiosity to stop at this church on our way back 
to the town. The hand of ruin had smitten it. Only the 
brick walls and zinc-covered spire remained uninjured. The 
belfry had been broken open, the windows demolished. The 
doors were gone. Within, you saw a hollow thing, symbolical. 
Two huge naked beams extended from end to end of the 
empty walls, which were scribbled over Avitli soldiers' names, 
and with patriotic mottoes interesting for proud Virginians to 
read. The floors had been torn up and consumed in cooking 
soldiers' rations ; and the foul and trampled interior showed 
plainly what use it had served. The church, which overlooked 
John Brown's martyrdom, and under whose roof his execu- 
tioners assembled afterwards to worship, not the God of the 
poor and the oppressed, but the God of the slaveholder and 
the aristocrat, had been converted into a stable. 



CITY OF WASHINGTON. 75 



CHAPTER IX. 

A SCENE AT THE WHITE HOUSE. 

Late in the evenino; of tlie twentv-nintli of August I 
readied Washington. 

Nearly every reader, I suppose, is familiar with descriptions 
of the national capital ; — its superb situation on the left bank 
of the Potomac ; the broad streets, the still more spacious 
avenues crossing them diagonally, and the sweeping undula- 
tions of the plain on which it is built, giving to the city its 
" magnificent distances " ; and those grand public buildings 
of which any country might be proud, — the Capitol especially, 
with its cloudlike whiteness and beauty, which would be as 
imposing as it is elegant, were it not that its windows are too 
many and too small. 

The manner in which the streets are built up, with here 
and there a fine residence surrounded by buildings of an in- 
ferior character, often with mere huts adjacent, and many an 
open space, giving to the metropohs an accidental and heteroge- 
neous character, — the dust in summer, the mud in winter, the 
fetor, the rubbish, the garbage ; and the corresponding charac- 
ter of the population, the most heterogeneous to be found in 
any American city, comprising all classes strangely mixed 
and fluctuating, the highest beside the lowest, the grandest 
and broadest human traits jostled by the meanest and foulest, 
— one half the people preying upon the other half, which ])reys 
upon the government ; — all this has been too often outlined 
by others to be dwelt upon by me. 

I noticed one novel feature in the city, however. At the 
hotel where I stopped, at the Attorney-General's office which 
I had occasion to visit, and again at the White House, where 



76 A SCENE AT THE WHITE HOUSE. 

I went to call on the President's military secretary, I met, 
repeatedly, throngs of the same or similar strange faces. 

It happened to be one of the President's reception days ; 
and the east room, the staircases, the lower and upper halls of 
the White House, were crowded. The upper hall especially, 
and the ladies' parlor adjacent to the President's room, were 
densely thronged. Some were walking to and fro, singly or 
in pairs ; some were conversing in groups ; othei's were loung- 
ing on chairs, tables, window-seats, or whatever offered a sup- 
port to limbs weary of long waiting. One was paring his 
nails ; another was fanning himself with his hat ; a third was 
asleep, with his head resting much cramped in a corner of the 
walls ; a fourth was sitting in a window, spitting tobacco-juice 
at an urn three yards off. When he took pains, he hit the 
urn with remarkable precision, showing long and careful prac- 
tice. But he did not always take pains, for the extreme heat 
and closeness of the apartments were not favorable to exer- 
tion ; and, indeed, what was the use of aiming always at the 
urn, when nearly every man was chewing tobacco as indus- 
triously as he, and generally spitting on the floors, — which 
had already become the most convincing argument against the 
habit of tobacco-chewing of which it is possible for the nause- 
ated imaoination to conceiv?. 

Faces of old men and young men were there, — some weary 
and anxious, a few persistently jocose, and nearly all betraying 
the unmistakable Southern type. It was, on the whole, a well- 
dressed crowd, for one so abominably filthy. 

" Nineteen out of twenty of all these people," I was told by 
the President's secretary, " are pardon-seeking Rebels. The 
most of them are twenty- thousand-dollar men, anxious to save 
their estates from confiscation." 

As the President's doors were expected soon to be opened, 
and as I wished to observe his manner of dealing with those 
men, I remained after finishing my business with the secre- 
tary, and mingled with the crowd. The fumes of heated 
bodies, in the ill-ventilated halls, were far from agreeable ; 
and as the time dragged heavily, and the doors of the Presi- 



PARDON-SEEKERS. 77 

dent's room continued closed, except wlien some favored indi- 
vidual, who had sent in his card, perhaps hours before, was 
admitted, I was more than once on the point of abandoning 
my object for a breath of fresh out-door air. 

The conversation of my Southern friends, however, proved 
sufficiently interesting to detain me. One gay and jaunty old 
man was particularly diverting in his remarks. He laughed 
at the melancholy ones for their long faces, pretending that 
he could tell by each man's looks which clause of the excep- 
tions, in the President's amnesty proclamation, his case came 
under. 

" You were a civil officer under the Confederate govern- 
ment. Am I right? Of course I ani. Your face shows it. 
My other friend here comes under No. 3, — he was an officer 
in the army. That sad old gentleman yonder, with a stand- 
ing collar, looks to me like one of those who left their homes 
within the jurisdiction of the United States to aid the Rebellion. 
He 's a number ten-er. And I reckon we are all thirteen- 
ers," — that is to say, persons of the thirteenth excepted class, 
the value of whose taxable property exceeded twenty thousand 
dollars. 

" Well, which clause do you come under ? " asked one. 

" I am happy to say, I come under three different clauses. 
Mine 's a particularly beautiful case. I 've been here every 
day for a week, waiting on the President, and I expect to 
have the pleasure of standing at this door many a day to come. 
Take example by me, and never despair." And the merry 
old man frisked away, with his cap slightly on one side, cov- 
ering gray hairs. His gay spirits, in that not very hilarious 
throng, attracted a good deal of attention ; but his was not the 
mirth of an inwardly happy mind. 

" You are not a Southern man ? " said one, singling me out. 

" No," said I ; " I am a Yankee." 

" You are not after a pardon, then. Lucky for you ! " 

" What have you done to be pardoned for ? " I asked. 

" I am worth over twenty thousand dollars ; that 's my dif- 
ficulty." 



78 A SCENE AT THE WHITE HOUSE. 

" And you aided the Rebellion ? " 

" Of course," — lauo-hino;. " Look here ! " — his manner 
changed, and his bright dark eye looked at me keenly, — " what 
do you Northerners, you Massachusetts men particularly, ex- 
pect to do now with the niggers ? " 

" We intend to make useful and industrious citizens of 
tliem." 

" You can't ! " " You never can do that ! " " That 's an 
absurdity ! " exclaimed three or four voices; and immediately 
I found myself surrounded by a group eager to discuss that 
question. 

" The nigger, once he 's free, won't work ! " 

" No," said another ; " he '11 steal, but he won't work." 

" I pity the poor niggers, after what you 've done for him," 
said a third. " They can't take care of themselves ; they '11 
starve before they '11 work, unless driven to it ; and in a little 
wliile they '11 be exterminated, just like the Indians." 

" I don't think so," said I. " The negro is very much like 
the rest of us, in many respects. He won't work unless he 
is obliged to. Neither will you. So don't blame liim. But 
when he finds work a necessity, that will drive him to it more 
surely than an}'^ master." 

" You Northerners know nothing of the negro ; you should 
see him on our plantations ! " 

" I intend to do so. In the mean time you should see him 
in our Northern cities, where he takes care of himself very 
well, supports his family, and proves an average good citizen. 
You should look into the affairs of the Freedmen's Bureau, 
here in Washington. There are in this city and its vicinity 
upwards of thirty thousand colored people. The majority have 
been suddenly swept into the department from their homes 
by the chances of war. You would consequently expect to 
find a vast number of paupers among them. But, on the 
contrary, nearly all are industrious and self-supporting ; only 
about three hundred of the number receiving partial support 
from the government. Now take my advice : give your 
negroes a chance, and see what they will do." 



APPEARANCE OF THE PRESIDENT. 79 

" We do give them all the chance they can have. And 
it 's for our interest to induce them to work. We are de- 
pendent on labor ; we are going to ruin as fast as possible for 
want of it. In the course of eight or ten years, maybe, they 
will begin to find out that everything in creation don't be- 
long to them now they are free, and that they can't live by 
stealing. But by that time, where w411 we be ? Where will 
the negro be ? " 

Of these men, one was from Georgia, one from North Caro- 
lina, and others from Florida and Virginia ; yet they all con- 
curred in the opinion, which no argument could shake, that 
the freedmen would die, but not work. 

Our conversation was interrupted by the opening of the 
President's room. A strong tide instantly set towards it, re- 
sulting in a violent jam at the door. I was carried in by the 
crowd, but got out of it as soon as possible, and placed myself 
in a corner where I could observe the proceedings of the re- 
ception. 

President Johnson w^as standing behind a barrier which ex- 
tended the whole length of the room, separating him from the 
crowd. One by one they were admitted to him ; each man 
presenting his card as he passed the barrier. Those who were 
without cards were refused admission, until they had pro- 
vided themselves with those little conveniences at a desk in 
the hall. 

I should scarcely have recognized the President from any 
of his published pictures. He appeared to me a man rather 
below the medium height, sufficiently stout, Avith a massy, 
well-developed head, strong features, dark, iron-gray hair, a 
thick, dark complexion, deep-sunk eyes, with a pecuHarly 
wrinkled, care-worn look about them, and a weary expression 
generally. His voice was mild and subdued, and his manner 
kindly. He shook hands with none. To each applicant for 
pardon he put a question or two, sometimes only one, and 
dispatched him, with a word of promise or advice. No one 
was permitted to occupy more than a minute or two of his 
time, while some were disposed of in as many seconds. On 



80 A SCENE AT THE WHITE HOUSE. 

the whole, it was an interesting but sad scene ; and I still 
carry in my memory the President's weary look, and the dis- 
appointed faces of the applicants, who, after long waiting, and 
perhaps going through with this same ceremony day after day, 
received no intimation that the object of their hopes was near 
its accomplishment. 



ON TO MANASSAS. 81 



CHAPTER X. 

BULL EUN. 

Taking the train at Washington, and crossino; the Ions: rail- 
road bridge Avhich spans the Potomac, I entered again a portion 
of Virginia rendered celebrated and desolate by war. 

Running down to Alexandria, and making a short stop there, 
we rattled on towards Manassas. All the names through- 
out that region are historical, stamped and re-stamped upon 
the memory of America by the burning brand of war. The 
brakeman bawls in at the door of the car words which start 
you with a thrill of recollection. The mind goes back through 
four fiery years of conflict to the campaign of '61, until 
it grows bewildered, in doubt whether that contest or this 
journey is unreal, — for surely one must be a dream! That 
first season of disaster and dismay, which associated the names 
of Fairfax Court House, Centreville, Bull Run, Manassas, with 
something infinitely horrible and fatal, had passed away like a 
cloud ; the storm of the subsequent year, still more terrible, 
except that we had grown accustomed to such, had also passed, 
dissolving in thin vapor of history ; and one Avould never have 
guessed that such things had been, but for the marks of the 
wratli of heaven, which had left the country scathed as with 
hailstones and coals of fire. 

Yes, those skirmishes and dire contests were realities ; and 
now this quiet journey, this commonplace mode of travel into 
what was then the " enemy's country," with hot-blooded Vir- 
ginians (now looking cool enough) sitting upon the seats next 
us, and conversing tamely and even pleasantly with us when 
Ave accosted them, — no murderous masked batteries in front, 
no guerrillas in the woods waiting to attack the train ; in short, 
G 



82 BULL RUN. 

no clanger threatening but the vulgar one of ralh'oad disasters, 
of late become so common ; this too was a reality no less 
wonderful, contrasted with the late rampant days of Rebel 
defiance. 

From Alexandria to Manassas Junction it is twenty-seven 
miles. Through all that distance we saw no signs of human 
industry, save here and there a sickly, half-cultivated cornfield, 
which looked as if it had been put in late, and left to pine in 
solitude. There were a few wood-lots still left standing ; but 
the country, for the most part consisted of fenceless fields aban- 
doned to weeds, stump-lots, and undergrowths. 

" Manassas Junction ! " announced the brakeman ; and we 
alighted. A more forbidding locality can scarcely be imagined. 
I believe there were a number of houses and shops there before 
the war, but they Avere destroyed, and two or three rum- 
shanties had lately sprung up hi their place. A row of black 
bottles, ranged on a shelf under a rudely constructed shed, were 
the first signs I saw of a reviving civilization. Near by a 
new tavern was building, of so fragile and thin a shell, it seemed 
as if the first high wind must blow it down. I also noticed 
some negroes digging a well ; for such are the needs of an 
advancing civilization : first rum, then a little water to put into 
it. All around was a desolate plain, slightly relieved from its 
dreary monotony by two or three Rebel forts overgrown with 
weeds. 

A tall young member of the Western press accompanied me. 
I went to a stable to secure a conveyance to the battle-field ; 
and, returning, found him seated on the steps of one of the 
" Refreshment Saloons," engaged in lively conversation with 
a red-faced and excitable young stranger. The latter was 
speaking boastingly of " our army." 

" Which army do you mean ? for there were two, you 
know," said my friend. 

" I mean the Confederate army, the best and bravest army 
that ever was ! " said he of the red face, emphatically. 

" It seems to me," remarked my friend, " the best and 
bravest army that ever was got pretty badly whipped." 



REBEL TALK. 83 

" The Confederate army never was whipped ! We Avere 
overpowered." 

" I see you Southern gentlemen have a new word. With 
us, wlien a man goes into a fight and comes out second best, 
the condition he is in is vulgarly called whipped.^^ 

" We were overpowered by numbers ! " ejaculated the 
Rebel. " Your army was three times as big as ours." 

" That 's nothing,' for you know one Southerner Avas equal 
to five Yankees." 

" And so he is, and always will be ! But yow had to get 
the niggers to help you." 

" What are a few niggers ? They would always run, you 
know, at sight of their masters, while of course such a thing 
was never known as their masters running from them ! " 

The unhappy member of the " overpowered " party flushed 
and fumed a while, not knowing what answer to make, then 
burst forth, — 

" It was the foreigners ! You never would have beaten us if 
it had n't been for the foreigners that made up your armies ! " 

" What ! " said my friend, " you, an American, acknowledge 
yourself beaten by foreigners ! I am ashamed of you ! " 

And the wagon arriving, he jumped into it with a laugh, 
leaving the Southerner, not whipped of course, but decidedly 
" overpowered " in this little contest of wit. It was quite 
evident that he was not equal to five Yankees with his tongue. 

"That young fellow you was talking with," said our driver, 
" was one of Mosby's guerrillas. There are plenty of them 
around here. They are terrible at talking, but that is about 
all." 

The wagon was an ambulance which had cost the o-overn- 
ment two hundred and fifty dollars a few months before. The 
springs proA-ing inferior, it Avas condemned, and sold at auction 
for twenty-four dollars. " I paid a hundred and twenty-five for 
it the next day," said the driver ; " and it 's ^vell worth the 
money." It was a strong, heavy, well-built vehicle, well suited 
to his business. " I was doAvn here with my regiment when I 
got my discharge, and it struck me something might be made by 



84 BULL RUN. 

taking visitors out to the battle-fields. But I have n't saved a 
cent at it yet ; passengers are few, and it 's mighty hard busi- 
ness, the roads are so awful bad." 

Worse roads are not often seen in a civilized country. " It 
makes me mad to see people drive over and around these bad 
places, month after month, and never think of mending 'em ! 
A little work with a shovel would save no end of lost time, 
and wear and tear, and broken wagons ; "but it 's never done." 

The original country roads had passed into disuse ; and, the 
fences being destroyed, only the curious parallel lines of 
strao"olinfr bushes and trees that grew beside them remained to 
mark their course. Necessity and convenience had struck out 
new roads winding at Avill over the fenceless farms. We 
crossed thinly wooded barrens, skirted old orchards, and 
passed now and then a standing chimney that marked the site 
of some ruined homestead ; up-hill and down-hill, rocking, 
rattling, jolting, and more than once nearly upsetting. I re- 
member not more than three or four inhabited houses on our 
route. In a wild field near the shelter of some w^oods was a 
village of half-ruined huts, interesting as having served in war- 
time as Rebel winter-quarters. At last, eight miles north from 
the Junction, we reached the scene of the first battle of Bull 
Run. 

This was the plateau, from which our almost victorious 
forces had driven and re-driven the enemy, when Johnston's 
reinforcements, arriving by the railroad which runs obliquely 
towards the Junction on the west, changed what was so nearly 
a triumph for our arms into a frightful disaster. The ground 
is well described in Beauregard's ofiicial report. " It is en- 
closed on three sides by small watercourses which empty into 
Bull Run within a few rods of each other, half a mile to the 
south of Stone Bridge. Rising to an elevation of quite one 
hundred feet above Bull Run at the bridge, it falls off on three 
sides to the level of the enclosing streams in gentle slopes, but 
which are furrowed by ravines of irregular direction and 
length, and studded with clumps and patches of young pines 
and oaks." . , . . " Completely surrounding the two houses 



WIDOW HENRY. 85 

before mentioned are small open fields of irregular outline, and 
exceeding one hundred and fifty acres in extent. The houses, 
occupied at the time, the one by Widow Henry, the other by 
the free .negro Robinson, are small wooden buildings densely 
embowered in trees and environed by a double row of fences 
on two sides. Around the eastern and southern brow of the 
plateau an almost unbroken fringe of second growth of pines 
gave excellent shelter for our marksmen, who availed them- 
selves of it with the most satisflictory skill. To the west, ad- 
joining the fields, a broad belt of oaks extends directly across 
the crest, on both sides of the Sudley road, in ^Vliich, during 
the battle, regiments of both armies met and contended for the 
mastery. From the open ground of this plateau the view em- 
braces a wide expanse of woods and gently undulating open 
country of broad grass and grain fields in all directions." 

Such was the appearance of the battle-field on that memo- 
rable twenty-first of July, four years before my visit. In its 
external features I found it greatly changed. IMany of the 
trees had been cut away. Every fence had disappeared. 
Where had waved the fields of grass and grain, extended one 
vast, neglected, barren tract of country. The widow's humble 
abode had been swept away. The widow herself was killed 
by a chance shot on the day of the battle. A little picket 
fence surrounding her grave was the only enclosure visible to 
us in all that region. Close by were the foundations of her 
house, a small square space run up to tallest weeds. Some of 
the poor woman's hollyhocks still survived, together with a 
few scattered and lonesome-looking peach-trees cut with balls. 
The hollyhocks w^ere in bloom, and the peaches were ripe : a 
touching sight to me, who could see the haunting figui-e of the 
poor widow looking at the favorite blossoms from her door, or 
returning from the trees to the house with her apron full of the 
fruit, which appeared duly year after year to comfort her, until 
at last she was no longer there needing earthly comfort. 
We were not past that material necessity, however ; and the 
poor woman's peaches comforted us this year. 

Within a few yards of the spot where her house was, on the 



86 BULL RUN. 

summit of the eminence, stands a pyramidal monument of 
rough red sand-stone, bearing this inscription : — 

IN 
MEMORY 

OF THE 

PATRIOTS 

WHO FELL AT 

BULL RUN 
JULY 21ST, 1861. 

This shaft, another inscription tells us, was erected June 10th, 
1865. There it stands on the " sacred soil," recalhng to the 
proud sons of Virginia many tilings. To them, and to all 
Americans, it has a grand and deep significance beyond any- 
thing words can convey. There it stands, a silent preacher, 
with its breast of stone, and its austere flice of stone, preaching 
inaudible stern lessons. Bull Run may be called the Bunker 
Hill of the last revolution. It was the prologue of disaster to 
the far-off final triumph. Well fought at first, we had almost 
won, the day, when, fresh troops pressing us, came the crushing 
defeat and horrible panic which filled the Avhole loyal North 
with dismay and the Avhole rebel South with exultation. 
Then how many a patriot heart fell sick with despair, and 
doubtingly murmured, " Does God still live ? and is there 
after all an overruling Power ? '' 

Look at that monument to-day. Where now is the triumph 
of the dark cause? Where now is the haughty slave empire 
whose eternal foundations were deemed established by that 
victory ? Where is the banner of Freedom trailed so low, all 
torn and blood-stained, in the dust ? God lives ! There is an 
overruling Power that never sleeps ; patient, foreseeing what 
we cannot see, and, in sublime knowledge of the end, tolerating 
the wrath of the unrighteous and the arrogance of the unjust. 
The day of victory for freedom had not yet come ; for triumph 
then would have been but half triumph. Temporary success 
to the bad cause was necessary to draw it irretrievably into 
the currents of destruction. 

Moreover, struggle and long agony were needful to this 



THE SECOND BULL RUN. 87 

nation. Frivolous, worldly, imitating other nations ; nour- 
ishino- in the very bosom of the Republic the serpent of a 
barbarous despotism ; in our heedlessness and hurry giving no 
ear to the cries of the oppressed ; we needed the baptism of 
blood and the awful lessons of loss to bring us back to sanity 
and soberness. The furnace of civil war was indispensable to 
fuse conflicting elements, and to pour the molten materials of 
the diverse States into the single mould of one mighty and 
masterful Nation. In order that it might take the lead of all 
the proud baiuiers on the globe, our flag must first be humbled, 
and win its wav through dust and battle-smoke to the eminence 
above all eminences of earthly power, where it is destined at 
last to float. 

There seems to have been something fatal to onr armies in 
the mere name of Bull Run. The visitor to the scene of the 
first disaster is already on the field of the second. The battles 
of the subsequent year, fought on a more stupendous scale, 
and sweeping over a vast area, included within their scope the 
hills on whicli we were standing. 

To reach the scene of the principal contest in 1862, how- 
ever, an advance of a mile or two had to be made. We rode 
on to a piece of woods, in the shade of which we halted, sur- 
rounded by marks of shot and shell in the timber, and by 
soldiers' graves lying lonely among the trees, with many a 
whitened bone scattered about or protruding. There, it being 
mid-day, we partook of luncheon sauced with Widow Henry's 
peaches. 

On the west of us was a large stony field sloping up to a 
wood-crowned height, — a field strown thick with dead in 
those sanguinary days of '62. The woods in which we were, 
extended around the north side of it also, forming a connection 
with the woods beyond. Making the circuit of this shady 
boundary, we reached the crest, which, strengthened greatly by 
an unfinished railroad track cut through it, afforded the enemy 
their most formidable position during the second Bull Run 
battle. 

At the summit of the open field stands another monument^ 



88 BULL RUN. 

similar to that we had first seen, dedicated to tlic " Memory 
of the Patriots who fell at Groverton, August 28th, 29th, and 
30th, 1862." This inscription had been mutilated by some 
Rebel hand, and made to read " Confederate Patriots " ; but 
my tall friend, arming himself with a stone, stepped upon the 
pedestal, amid the black rows of shells surrounding it, and 
resolutely ground the offensive word out of the tablet. 

Groverton, which has given the field its name, is a little 
cluster of three or four buildings lying out west of it on the 
turnpike. 

There are two or three points of striking resemblance be- 
tween the first and second battles of Bull Run. At one time 
almost a victory, this also proved at last a defeat ; and again 
the North was filled with consternation at seeing the barrier 
of its armies broken, and the country laid open to the foe. 
After the first Bull Run, the Rebels might have entered 
Washington almost without opposition. After the second, they 
did invade Maryland, getting as far as Antietam. It is also a 
circumstance worthy of note, that in each figlit the victory 
might have been rendered complete, but for the failure of an 
important command to perform the part assigned it. General 
Patterson remained inert at Winchester, while Johnston, 
whom it was his business to look after, hastened to reinforce 
Beaureo-ard and turn the scale of battle. At the second Bull 
Run, General Porter's neglect to obey the orders of General 
Pope wrought incalculable mischief, and contributed similarly 
to change the opening successes into final discomfiture. 

Lastly the lesson taught by both disasters is the same : that 
the triumph of a bad cause is but illusory and transient ; while 
for the cause which moves duly in the divine currents of 
human progress there can be no failure, for, though tossed and 
buffeted, and seemingly wrecked, its keel is in the eternal 
waters, the Avinds of heaven fill its sails, and the hand of the 
Great Pilot is at the helm. 

Returnino-, we stopped at the " stone house " near the first 
battle-field, in hopes of getting some personal information from 
the inhabitants. They were present during the fight, and the 



NEW METHOD OF MAKING CIDER. 8iJ 

outer ualls sliow enduring marks of the destructive visits of 
cannon-shot. The house Avas formerly a tavern, and the man 
who kc])t it was one of those two-fliced farmers, Secessionists 
at heart, but always loyal to the winning side. By workino- 
well his political weathercock, he had managed to get his 
house through the storm, although in a somewhat dismantled 
condition. The bar-room was as barren as the intellect of 
the owner. The only thing memorable we obtained there 
was some most extraordinary cider. This the proprietor was 
too proud to sell, or else the pretence that it belonged to the 
" old nigger " was nearer the truth than my tall friend was 
willing to admit. At all events, the " old nio;o;er " broudit it 
in, and received pay for it besides, evidently contrary to his 
expectations, and to the disappointment of the landlord. 

" Uncle, what sort of cider is this? how did you make it? " 
For neither of us had ever tasted anything resembling it before, 
nor did we wish ever to taste its like again. 

Uncle, standing in the door, with one foot on the thresh- 
old, ducking and grinning, one hand holding his old cap, and 
the other his knee, after earnest urging, told us the secret. 

" Dat cidah, sah, I made out o' peaches and apples mixed, 
'bout half and half. Dat's what makes it taste cur'us." 

" Oh, but that 's not all, uncle ; you put water in it ! You 
meant to cheat us, I see, with your miscegenated cider and 
water ! " 

Uncle did not exactly understand the nature of this charge, 
but evidently thought it something serious. 

" No, no, gentlemen, I did n't do it for roguishness ! 1 put 
in de peaches 'case dar was n't apples enough. I pounded 
'em up wid a pestle in a barrel. Den I put a stake under de 
house corner wid rocks on to it for a press. I put de water 
in to make de juice come easier, it was so dry I " 

Having learned his method of manufacturing cider, we in- 
quired his opinion of the war. 

" Did n't you think. Uncle, the white folks were great fools 
to kill each other the way they did ? " said my friend. 

" 'T would n't do for me to say so ; dcy was old enouo-h, and 



90 BULL KUN. 

ageable enough, to know best ; but I could n't help tink'n' 
sah 1 " 

Returning to the Junction, I saw a very different type of 
the Virginia negro : an old man of seventy, who conversed 
intelligently, but in a strangely quiet and subdued tone, which 
bespoke long suffering and great patience. He had been a 
free man seven years, he told me ; but he had a brother who 
still served the man he belonged to. 

" But he, too, is free now," I said. " Don't he receive 
wages ? '' 

The old man shook his head sadly. " There 's nothing said 
about wages to any of our people in this part of the country. 
They don't dare to ask for them, and their owners will hold 
them as they used to as long as they can. They are A^'ery 
sharp with us now. If a man of my color dared to say what 
he thought, it would be all his life was worth ! " 



ON THE "WAWASET." 91 



CHAPTER XI. 

* A VISIT TO MOUNT VERXOX. 

On a day of exceeding sultriness (it was the fourtli of Sep- 
tember) I left the dusty, stifled streets of Washington, and 
went on board the excursion steamer Wawaset, bound for 
Mount Vernon. 

Ten o'clock, the hour of starting, had nearly arrived. No 
breath of air was stirring. The sun beat down with torrid 
fervor upon the boat's awnings, which seemed scarce a protec- 
tion against it, and upon the glassy water, which reflected it 
with equal intensity from below. Then suddenly the bell 
rang, the boat swung out in the river, the strong paddles 
rushed, and almost instantly a magical change took place. A 
delightful breeze appeared to have sprung up, increasing as 
the steamer's speed increased. I sat upon a stool by the wheel- 
house, drinking in all the deliciousness of that coolino- motion 
through the air, and watching compassionately the schooners 
with heavy and languid sails lying becalmed in the channel, — 
indolent fellows, drifting with the tide, and dependent on influ- 
ences from without to push them, — while our steamer, with 
flashing wake, flag gayly flying, and decks swept by whole- 
some, animating winds, resembled one of your energetic, orig- 
inal men, cutting the sluggish current, and overcoming the 
sultriness and stagnation of life by a refreshing activity. 

On we sped, leaving far behind the Virginia long-boats, with 
their pointed sails on great poles swung aslant across the 
masts, — sails dingy in color and irregular in shape, looking, 
a little way off;, like huge sweet potatoes. Our course was 
southward, leaving far on our right the Arlington estate em- 
bowered in foliage on the Virginia shore ; and on our left 



92 A VISIT TO MOUNT VERNON. 

the Navy Yard and Arsenal, and the Insane Asylum standing 
like a stern castle, half hidden by trees, on the high banks back 
from the river. As we departed from the wharves, a view of 
the city opened behind us, with its two prominent objects, — 
the unfinished Washington Monument, resembling in the dis- 
tance a tall, square, pallid sail ; and the many-pillared, beau- 
tiful Capitol, rising amid masses of foliage, with that marvellous 
bubble, its white and airy dome, soaring superbly in the sun. 

Before us, straight in our course, was Alexandria, quaint 
old city, with its scanty fringe of straight and slender spars, 
and its fcAv anchored ships suspended in a glassy atmosphere, 
as it seemed, where the river reflected the sky. We ran in to 
the wharves, and took on board a number of passengers ; then 
steamed on again, down the wide Potomac, until, around a 
bend, high on a wooded shore, a dim red roof and a portico 
of slender white pillars appeared visibly through the trees. 

It was Mount Vernon, the home of Washington. The 
shores here, on both the Maryland and Virginia sides, are 
picturesquely hilly and green with groves. The river between 
flows considerably more than a mile wide : a handsome sheet, 
reflectinji; the woods and the shininc; summer clouds sailino; 
in the azure over them, although broad belts of river-grass, 
growing between the channel and the banks like strips of 
inundated prairie, detract from its beauty. 

As Ave drew near, the helmsman tolled the boat's bell slowly. 
" Before the war," said he, " no boat ever passed Mount 
Vernon Avithout tolling its bell, if it had one. The Avar kind 
of broke into that custom, as it did into most CA'crything else ; 
but it is coming up again noAv." 

We did not make directly for the landing, but kept due on 
doAvn the channel until aa'C had left Mount Vernon half a mile 
away on our right. Then suddenly the steamer changed her 
course, steering into the tract of river-grass, Avhich AvaA'ed and 
tossed heavily as the ripple from the bows shook it from its 
drowsy languor. The tide rises here some four feet. It Avas 
loAV tide then, and the circuit we had made Avas necessary to 
avoid grounding on the bar. We were entering shalloAv water. 



TOMB OF WASHINGTON. 93 

We touched and drew hard for a few minutes over the yield- 
ing sand. The dense grass seemed almost as serious an im- 
pediment as the bar itself. Down among its dark heaving 
masses we had occasional glimpses of the bottom, and saw 
hundreds of fishes darting away, and sometimes leaping sheer 
from the surface, in terror of the great, gliding, paddling 
monster, invading, in that strange fashion, their peaceful do- 
main. 

Drawing a well-defined line half a mile long through that 
submerged prairie, Ave reached the old wooden pier, built out 
into it from the Mount Vernon shore. I did not land imme- 
diately, but remained on deck, watching the long line of pil- 
grims going up from the boat along the climbing path and 
disappearing in the woods. There were, perhaps, a hundred 
and fifty in the procession, men and women and children, 
some carrying baskets, with intent to enjoy a nice little picnic 
under the old Washington trees. It was a pleasing sight, 
rendered interesting by the historical associations of the place, 
but slightly dashed Avith the ludicrous, it must be owned, by 
a solemn tipsy wight bringing up the rear, singing, or rather 
bawlino;, the o-ood old tune of Greenville, with maudlin nasal 
twang, and beating time with profound gravity and a big 
stick. 

As the singer, as well as his tune, was tediously sIoav, I 
passed him on the Avay, ascended the long slope through the 
grove, and found my procession halted under the trees on the 
edge of it. Facing them, with an old decayed orchard be- 
hind it, Avas a broad, Ioav brick structure, Avith an arched en- 
trance and an iron-grated gate. Tavo marble shafts flanked 
the approach to it on the right and left. Passing these, I 
paused, and read on a marble slab over the Gothic gateway 
the words, — 

"Within this enclosure rest the remains of Gen- 
eral George Washington." 

The throng of pilgrims, aAved into silence, Avere beginning 
to draw back a little from the tomb. I approached, and lean- 
ing against the iron bars, looked through into the still, damp 



94 A VISIT TO MOUNT VERNON. 

chamber. Within, a httle to the right of the centre of the 
vault, stands a massive and richly sculptured marble sarcoph- 
agus, bearing the name of " Washington." By its side, of 
equal dimensions, but of simpler style, is another, bearing the 
inscription, " Martha, the consort of Washington." 

It is a sequestered spot, half enclosed by the trees of the 
grove on the south side, — cedars, sycamores, and black-wal- 
nuts, heavily hung with vines, sheltering the entrance from the 
mid-day sun. Woodpeckers flitted and screamed from trunk 
to trunk of the ancient orchard beyond.. Eager chickens were 
catching grasshoppers under the honey-locusts, along by the 
old wooden fence. And, humming harmlessly in and out 
over the heads of the pilgrims, I noticed a colony of wasps, 
whose mud-built nests stuccoed profusely the yellowish ceiling 
of the vault. 

There rest the ashes of the great chieftain, and of Martha 
his wife. I did not like the word " consort." It is too fine 
a term for a tombstone. There is something lofty and ro- 
mantic about it ; but " wife " is simple, tender, near to the 
heart, steeped in the divine atmosphere of home, — 

" A something not too briglat and good 
For human nature's daily food." 

She was the loife of Washington : a true, deep-hearted 
woman, the blessing and comfort, not of the Commander-in- 
chief, not of the first President, but of the man. And Wash- 
ington, the MAN, was not the cold, majestic, sculptured figure 
which has been placed on the pedestal of history. There was 
nothino- marble about him but the artistic and spotless finish 
of his public career. Majestic he truly was, as simple great- 
ness must be ; and cold he seemed to many ; — nor was it fitting 
that the sacred chambers of that august personality should be 
thrown open to the vulgar feet and gaze of the nuiltitude. It 
is littleness and vanity that are loose of tongue and unseason- 
ably familiar. 

" Yet shine forever virgin minds, 
Beloved by stars and purest winds, 



LAWN AND OUT-BUILDINGS. 95 

Which, o'er passion throned sedate, 

Have not hazarded their state ; 

Disconcert the searching spy, 

Ilendcring, to the curious eye, 

The durance of a granite ledge 

To those who gaze from the sea's edge." 

< 

Of these virgin minds was Washington. The world saw 
him througli a veil of reserve, as habitual to him as the sceptre 
of self-control. Yet beneath that veil throbbed a fiery nature, 
which on a few rare occasions is known to have flamed forth 
into terrible wrath. Anecdotes, recording those instances of 
volcanic eruption from the core of this serene and lofty char- 
acter, are refreshing and precious to us, as showing that the 
ice and snow were only on the summit, while beneath burned 
those fountains of glowing life which are reservoirs of power 
to the virtue and will that know how to control them. A 
man of pure, strong, constant affections, 'his love of tranquil 
domestic enjoyments was as remarkable as his self-sacrificinrr 
patriotism. I know not Washington's "consort" ; but to me 
a very sweet, beautiful, and touching name is that of " jMartha, 
Washington's wife." 

Quitting the tomb, I walked along by the old board fence 
which bounds the comer of the orchard, and turned up the 
locust-shaded avenue leading to the mansion. On one side 
was a wooden shed, on the other an old-fashioned brick barn. 
Passing these, you seem to be entering a little village. The 
out-houses are numerous; I noticed the wash-house, the meat- 
house, and the kitchen, the butler's house, and the gardener's 
house, — neat white buildings, ranged around the end of the 
lawn, among which the mansion stands the princij>,al figure. 

Looking in at the wash-house, I saw a pretty-looking col- 
ored girl industriously scrubbing over a tub. She told me 
that she was twenty years old, that her husband worked 
on the place, and that a bright little fellow, four years old, 
running around the door, handsome as polished bronze, was 
her son. She formerly belonged to John A. Washington, 
wdio made haste to carry her off to Richmond, with the money 



96 A VISIT TO MOUNT VERNON. 

the Ladies' Mount Vernon Association had paid him, on the 
breaking out of the war. She was born on the phace, but 
had never worked for John A. Washington. " He kept me 
hired out ; for I s'pose he could make more by me that way." 
She laughed pleasantly as she spoke, and rubbed away at the 
wet clothes in the tub. 

I looked at her, so intelligent and cheerful, a woman and a 
mother, though so young; and wondered at the man who 
could pretend to own such a creature, hire her out to other 
masters, and live upon her wages ! I have heard people scoff 
at John A. Washington for selling the inherited bones of 
the great, — for surely the two hundred thousand dollars, 
paid by the Ladies' Association for the Mount Vernon estate, 
was not the price merely of that old mansion, these out-houses, 
since repaired, and two hundred acres of land, — but I do not 
scoff at him for that. Why should not one, who dealt in living 
human flesh and blobd, also traffic a little in the ashes of the 
dead? 

" After the war was over, the Ladies' Association sent for 
me from Richmond, and I work for them now," said the girl, 
merrily scrubbing. 

" What wages do you get? " 

" I gits seven dollars a month, and that 's a heap better 'n 
no wages at all ! " laughing again with pleasure. " The 
sweat I drap into this yer tub is my own ; but befo'e, it be- 
lono-ed to John A. Washino;ton." As I did not understand 
her at first, she added, " You know, the Bible says every one 
must live by the sweat of his own eyebrow. But John A. 
Washington, he lived by the sweat of my eyebrow. I alluz 
had a will'n mind to work, and I have now ; but I don't work 
as I used to ; for then it was work to-day and work to-mor- 
row, and no stop." 

Beside the kitchen was a well -house, where I stopped 
and drank a delicious draught out of an " old oaken bucket," 
or rather a new one, which came up brimming from its cold 
depths. This well was dug in General Washington's time, the 
cook told me ; and as I drank, and looked down, down into the 



MANSION AND RELICS. 97 

dark shaft at the faintly glimmering water, — for the well -was 
deep, — I thought how often the old General had probably 
come up thither from the field, taken off his hat in the shade, 
and solaced his thirst with a drink from the dripping bucket. 

Passing between the kitchen and the butler's house, you 
come upon a small plateau, a level green lawn, nearly sur- 
rounded by a circle of large shade-trees. The shape of this 
pleasant esplanade is oblong : at the farther end, away on the 
left, is the ancient entrance to the grounds ; close by on the 
right, at the end nearest the river, is the mansion. 

Among the shade-trees, of which there are a great variety, 
I noticed a fine sugar-maple, said to be the only individual 
of the species in all that region. It was planted by General 
Washington, " who wished to see what trees would grow in 
that climate," the gardener told me. It has for neighbors, 
among many others, a tulip-tree, a Kentucky coffee-tree, and 
a magnolia set out by Washington's own hand. I looked at 
the last with peculiar interest, thinking it a type of our country, 
the perennial roots of which were about the same time laid 
carefully in the bosom of the eternal mother, covered and 
nursed and watered by the same illustrious hand, — a little tree 
then, feeble, and by no means sure to live ; but now I looked 
up, thrilling with pride at the glory of its spreading branches, 
its storm-defying tops, and its mighty trunk which not even 
the axe of treason could sever. 

I approached the mansion. It was needless to lift the great 
brass knocker, for the door was open. The house was full of 
guests thronging the rooms and examining the relics ; among 
which were conspicuous these : hanging in a little brass-framed 
glass case in the hall, the key of the Bastile, presented to 
Washington by Lafayette ; in the dining-hall, a very old- 
fashioned hai-psichord that had entirely lost its voice, but 
which is still cherished as a weddino;-o;if^ from Washino;ton to 
his adopted daughter ; in the same room, holsters and a part 
of the Commander-in-chief's camp-equipage, very dilapidated ; 
and, in a square bedroom up-stairs, the bedstead on which 
Washington slept, and on which he died. There is no sight 
r 



98 A VISIT TO MOUNT VERNON. 

more touching than this bedstead, surrounded by its holy 
associations, to be seen at Mount Vernon. 

From the house I went out on the side opposite that on 
which I had entered, and found myself standing under the 
portico we had seen when coming down the river. A noble 
portico, lofty as the eaves of the hovise, and extending the 
whole length of the mansion,-^ fifteen feet in width and ninety- 
six in length, says the Guide-Book. The square pillars sup- 
porting it are not so slender, either ; but it was their height 
which made them appear so when we first saw them miles off 
up the Potomac. 

What a portico for a statesman to walk under, — so lofty, so 
spacious, and affording such views of the river and its shores, 
and the sky over all ! Once more I saw the venerable figure 
of him, the first in war and the first in jjcace, pacing to and 
fro on those. pavements of flat stone, solitary, rapt in thought, 
glancing ever and anon up the Potomac towards the site of the 
now great capital bearing his name, contemplating the revo- 
lution accomplished, and dreaming of his country's future. 
There was one great danger he feared : the separation of the 
States. But well for him, O, well for the great-hearted and 
wise chieftain, that the appalling blackness of the storm, des- 
tined so soon to deluge the land with blood for rain-drops, was 
hidden from his eyes, or appeared far in the dim horizon no 
bigger than a man's hand ! 

Saved from the sordid hands of a degenerate posterity, saved 
from the desolation of unsparing civil war, Mount Vernon 
still remains to us with its antique mansion and its delightful 
shades. I took all the more pleasure in the place, remem- 
bering how dear it was to its illustrious owner. There is no 
trait in Washington's character with which I sympathize so 
strongly as with his love for his home. True, that home 
was surrounded with all the comforts and elegancies which 
fortune and taste could command. But had Mount Vernon 
been as humble as it was beautiful, Washington would have 
loved it scarcely less. It was dear to him, not as a fine estate, 
but as the home of his heart. A simply great and truly wise 



A THUNDER-STORM. 99 

man, free from foolish vanity and ambition, lie served his 
country with a willing spirit ; yet he knew Avell that happiness 
does not subsist upon worldly honors nor dwell in high places, 
but that her favorite haunt is by the pure waters of domestic 
tranquillity. 

There came up a sudden thunder-shower while we were at 
the house. The dreadful peals rolled and rattled from wing to 
wing of the black cloud that oversh&,dowed the river, and the 
rain fell in torrents. Umbrellas were scarce, and I am sorry 
to say the portico leaked badly. But the storm passed as sud- 
denly as it came ; the rifted clouds floated away with sun-lit 
edges glittering like silver fire, and all the M^et leafage of the 
trees twinkled and laughed in the fresh golden light. I did 
not return to the boat with the crowd by the way we came, 
but descended the steep banks through the drenched woods 
in front of the mansion, to the low sandy shore of the Poto- 
mac, then walked along the water's edge, under the dripping 
boughs, to the steamer, and so took my leave of Mount 
Vernon. 



100 "STATE PRIDE." 



CHAPTER XII. 

"STATE PRIDE." 

Leaving Washington by steamer again, early on the morn- 
ing of the twelfth of September, a breezy sail of three hours 
down the Potomac brought us to Acquia Creek. 

The creek was still there, debouching broad and placid into 
the river, for, luckily, destroying armies cannot consume the 
everlastino- streams. The forests, which densely covered all 
that region before the Avar, had been cut away. Not a build- 
ing of any kind was to be seen ; and only the blackened ruins 
of half-burnt Avharves, extending out into the river, remained 
to indicate that here had been an important depot of supplies. 

Taking the cars near an extemporized landing, we traversed 
a country of shaggy hills, completely clad in thick under- 
growths Avhich had sprung up where the ancient forests stood. 
At the end of two hours' slow travel, through a tract almost 
exclusively of this character, we arrived at a hiatus in the 
railroad. The bridge over the Rappahannock not having 
been rebuilt since the war, it was necessary to cross to Fred- 
ericksburg by another conveyance than the cars. A long line 
of coaches was in M^aiting for the train. I climbed the top- 
most seat of the foremost coach, which was soon leading the 
rumbling, dusty procession over the hills toward the city. 

From a barren summit we obtained a view of Fredericks- 
burg, pleasantly situated on the farther bank of the river, with 
the hiiT-h rido-e behind it which Bumside endeavored in vain 
to take. We crossed the brick-colored Rappahannock (not 
a lovely stream to look upon) by a pontoon bridge, and as- 
cending the opposite shore, rode through the half-ruined city. 

Fredericksburg had not yet begun to recover from the effects 
of Burnside's shells. Scarcely a house in the burnt portions 



ENTERING FREDERICKSBURG. 101 

liad been rebuilt. Many houses were entirely destroyed, and 
only the solitary chimney-stacks remained. Of others, you 
saw no vestige but broken brick walls, and foundations over- 
grown with Jamestown-weeds, sumachs, and thistles. Farther 
up from the river the town had been less badly used ; but we 
passed even there many a dwelling with a broken chimney, 
and with great awkward holes in walls and roofs. Some were 
windowless and deserted ; but others had been patched up and 
rendered inhabitable again. High over the city soar the 
churcii-spircs, which, standing between two artillery fires on 
the day of the battle, received the ironical compliments of 
both. The zinc sheathing of one of these steeples is well 
riddled and ri])ped, and the tipsy vane leans at an angle of 
forty-five degrees from its original perpendicular. 

Sitting next me on the stage-top was a vivacious young ex- 
pressman, who was in the battle, and who volunteered to give 
me some account of it. No doubt his description was beauti- 
fully clear, but as he spoke only of " our army," without calling- 
it by name, it was long before I could decide which army was 
meant. Sometimes it seemed to be one, then it was more 
likely the other ; so that, before his account of its movements 
was ended, my mind was in a delightful state of confusion. A 
certain delicacy on my part, which Avas quite superfluous, had 
prevented me from asking him plainly at first on which side 
he was fighting. At last, by inference and indirection, I got 
at the fact ; — " our army " was the Rebel army. 

" I am a son of Virginia ! " he told me afterwards, his whole 
manner expressing a proud satisfaction. " I was opposed to 
secession at first, but afterwards I went into it witli my whole 
heart and soul. Do you want to know what carried me in ? 
State pride, sir ! nothing else in the world. I 'd give more for 
Virginia than for all the rest of the Union put together ; and 
I was bound to go with my State." 

This was spoken with emphasis, and a certain rapture, as a 
lover might speak of his mistress. I think I never before real- 
ized so fully what " State pride " was. In New England and 
the West, you find very little of it. However deep it may 



102 "STATE PRIDE." 

lie in the hearts of the people, it is not theii habit to rant 
about it. You never hear a Vermonter or an Indianian ex- 
claim, " I believe my State is worth all the rest oi the Union ! " 
with excited countenance, lip curved, and eye in fine frenzy 
rolling. Their patriotism is too large and inclusive to be 
stopped by narrow State boundaries. Besides, in communi- 
ties where equality prevails there is little of that peculiar pride 
which the existence of caste engenders. Accustomed to look 
down upon slaves and poor whites, the aristocratic classes soon 
learn to believe that they are the people, and that wisdom will 
die with them. 

In the case of Virginians, I think that the mere name of 
the State has also something to do with their pride in her. 
To hear one of them enunciate the euphonious syllables when 
asked to what portion of the Union he belongs, is wonderfully 
edifying ; it is as good as eating a peach. " V-i-r-g-i-n—i-a,^^ he 
tells you, dwelling with rich intonations on the luscious vowels 
and consonants, — in his mind doubtless the choicest in the 
alphabet ; and he seems proudly conscious, as he utters 
them, of having spoken a charm which enwraps him in an 
atmosphere of romance. Thenceforth he is imapproachable 
on that verdurous ground, the envy and despair of all who 
are so unfortunate as to have been born elsewhere. Thus a 
rich word surrounds itself with rich associations. But suppose 
a different name : instead of Virginia, Stubland, for example. 
It might indeed be the best State of all, yet, believe me, iStuh- 
land would have in all its borders no soil fertile enough to 
grow the fine plant of State pride. 

"I believe," said I, "there is but one State as proud as 
Virginia, and that is the fiery little State of South Carolina." 

"I have less respect for South Carolina," said he, "than 
for any other State in the Union. South Carolina troops 
were the woi-st troops in the Confederate army. It was South 
Carolina's self-conceit and bluster that caused the war." 

(So, State pride in another State than Virginia was only 
" self-conceit.") 

" Yes," said I, " South Carolina began the war ; but Vir- 



t:::^. 




^^^-^ 






I j_li!Uiiiiiii«)il(»w0*' 



STAGE-COACH CONVERSATION. 108 

ginia carried it on. If Virginia had thrown the weight of her 
very o-reat power in the Union against secession, resort to 
arms woukl never have been necessary. She held a position 
which she has forfeited forevei', because she was not true to it. 
By seceding she lost wealth, influence, slavery, and the blood 
of her bravest sons ; and what has she gained? I wonder, sir, 
how your State pride can hold out so well." 

"Virginia," he replied, with another gleam, his eyes doing 
the fine frenzy again, " Virginia made the gallantest fight that 
ever was ; and I am prouder of her to-day than I ever was in 
myl»e!" 

" But you are glad she is back in the Union again ? " 

" To tell the truth, I am. I think more of the Union, too, 
than I ever did before. It was a square, stand-up fight ; we 
got beaten, and I suppose it is all for the best. The very 
hottest Secessionists are now the first to come back and offer 
support to the government." He tapped a little tin trunk he 
carried. " I have fifty pardons here, which I am carrying 
from Washington to Richmond, for men who, a year ago, you 
would have said would drown themselves sooner than take 
the oath of allegiance to the United States. It was a rich 
sight to see these very men crowding to take the oath. It 
was a bitter pill to some, and they made wry faces at it ; but 
the rest were glad enough to get back into the old Union. It 
was like going home." 

" What astonishes me," said I, " after all the Southern 
people's violent talk about the last ditch, — about carrying on 
an endless ouerrilla warfare after their armies were broken up, 
and fighting in swamps and mountains till the last man was 
exterminated, — what astonishes me is, that they take so sen- 
sible a view of their situation, and accept it so frankly ; and 
that you, a Rebel, and I, a Yankee, are sitting on this stage 
talking over the bloody business so good-naturedly ! ' 

" Well, it is astonishing, when you think of it I Southern 
men and Northern men ride together in the trains, and stop at 
the same hotels, as if we were all one people, — as indeed we 
are : one nation now," he added, " as we never were before, 
and never could have been without the war." 



104 " STATE PRIDE." 

I got down at the hotel, washed and brushed away the dust 
of travel, and went out to the dininii-room. There the first 
thing that met my eye was a pair of large wooden fans, covered 
with damask cloth which afforded an ample flap to each, sus- 
pended over the table, and set in motion by means of a rope 
dropped from a pulley by the door. At the end of the rope 
was a shining negro-boy about ten years old, pulling as if it 
were the rope of a fire-bell, and the whole town were in flames. 
The fans swayed to and fro, a fine breeze blew all up and down 
the table, and not a fly was to be seen. I noticed before long, 
however, that the little darkey's industry Avas of an Inter- 
mittent sort ; for at times he would cease pulling altogether, 
until the landlady passed that Avay, when he would seem to 
hear the cries of fire again, and once more fliU to rinmncr his 
silent alarm-bell in the most violent manner. 

The landlady was the m'anager of the house ; and I naturally 
took her to be a widow until her Imsband was pointed out to 
me, — a mere tavern lounger, of no account any way. It is 
quite common to find Virginia hotels kept in this manner. 
The wife does the work ; the husband takes his ease in his inn. 
The business goes in her name ; — he is the sleeping partner. 

After dinner I went out to view the town. As I stood 
looking at the empty walls of the gutted court-house, a sturdy 
old man approached. He stopped to answer my questions, 
and pointing at the havoc made by shells, exclaimed, — 

" You see the result of the vanity of Virginia ! " 

" Are you a Virginian ! " 

" I am ; but that is no reason why I should be blind to the 
faults of my State. It was the vanity of Virginia, and nothing 
else, that caused all our trouble." 

(Here was another name for " State pride.") 

" You were not very much in favor of secession, I take it ? " 

" In favor of it ! " he exclaimed, kindling. " Did n't they 
have me in jail here nine Aveeks because I would not vote 
for it? If I had n't been an old man, they would have hung 
me. Ah, I told them how it Avould be, from the first ; but 
they would n't believe me. Now they see ! Look at this 



STATE VANITY. 105 

ruined city ! Look at tlio farms and plantations laid waste ! 
Look at the complete paralysis of business ; the rich reduced 
to poverty ; the men and boys with one arm, one leg, or one 
hand ; the tens of thousands of graves ; the broken fomilies ; 
— it is all the result of vanity ! vanity ! " 

He showed me the road to the Heights, and we parted on 
the corner. 



106 THE FIELD OF FREDERICKSBURG. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE FIELD OF FREDERICKSBURG. 

Fkedericksburg stands upon a ridge on the right bank of 
the river. Behind the town is a pLain, with a still more 
elevated ridge beyond. From the summit of the last you 
obtain an excellent view of the battle-field; the plain below the 
town where Hooker fought ; the heights on the opposite side 
of the river manned by our batteries ; the fields on the left ; 
and the plain between the ridge and the town, where the 
friffhtfullest slaufrhter was. 

Along by the foot of the crest, just where it slopes off to the 
plain, runs a road with a wall of heavy quarried stones on each 
side. In this road the Rebels lay concealed when the first 
attempt was made to storm the Heights. The wall on the lower 
side, towards the town, is the " stone wall " of history. It was 
a perfect breastwork, of great strength, and in the very best 
position that could have been chosen. The earth from the 
fields is more or less banked up against it; and this, together 
with the weeds and bushes which grew there, served to conceal 
it from our men. The sudden cruel volley of flame and lead 
which poured over it into their very faces, scarce a dozen paces 
distant, as they charged, was the first intimation they received 
of any enemy below the crest. No troops could stand that 
near and deadly fire. They broke, and leaving the ground 
strown with the fallen, retreated to the " ravine," — a deep 
ditch with a little stream flowing through it, in the midst of 
the plain. 

" Just when they turned to run, that Avas the worst time 
for them ! " said a young Rebel I met on the Heights. " Then 
our men had nothing to fear ; but they just rose right up and 



STORilING OF FREDERICKSBURG 107 

let 'era have It ! Every charge your troops made afterwards, 
it was the same. The mfantry in the road, and the artillery 
on these Heights, just mowed them down in swaths! You 
never saw anything look as that plain did after the battle. 
Saturday morning, before the fight, it was brown ; Sunday it 
was all blue ; Monday it was white, and Tuesday it was 
red." 

I asked him to explain this seeming riddle. 

" Don't you see ? Before the fight there was just the field. 
Next it was covered all over with your fellows in blue clothes. 
Saturday night the blue clothes were stripped off, and only 
their white under-clothes left. Monday night these were 
stripped off, and Tuesday they lay all in their naked skins." 

" Who stripped the dead in that way ? " 

" It was mostly done by the North Carolinians. They are 
the triflin'est set of men ! " 

" What do you mean by trijiin'est? " 

" They ha'n't got no sense. They '11 stoop to anything. 
They 're more like savages than civilized men. They say 
' we ^uns ' and ' you 'uns,' and all such outlandish phrases. 
They 've got a great long tone to their voice, like something 
wild." 

" Were you in the battle ? '' 

"Yes, I was in all of Saturday's fight. My regiment was 
stationed on the hill down on the right there. We could see 
everything. Your men piled up their dead for breastworks. 
It was an awful sight when the shells struck them, and ex- 
ploded ! The air, for a minute, would be just full of legs and 
arms and pieces of trunks. Down by the road there Ave dug 
out a wagon-load of muskets. They had been piled up by 
your fellows, and dirt thrown over them, for a breastwork. 
But the worst sight I saw was three days afterwards. I did n't 
mind the heaps of dead, nor nothing. But just a starving dog 
sitting by a corpse, which he would n't let anybody come near, 
and which he never left night nor day ; — by George, that just 
made me cry ! We finally had to shoot the dog to get at the 
man to bury him." 



108 THE FIELD OF FREDERICKSBURG. 

The young Rebel tliouglit our army might have been easily 
destroyed after Saturday's battle, — at least that portion of it 
"which occupied Fredericksburg. " We had guns on that 
point that could have cut your pontoon bridge in two ; and 
then our artillery could have blown Burnside all to pieces, or 
have compelled his surrender.'' 

" Why did n't you doit?" 

" Because General Lee was too humane. He did n't want 
to kill so many men." 

A foolish reason, but it was the best the young man could 
offer. The truth is, however, Burnside's army was in a posi- 
tion of extreme danger, after its failure to carry the Heights, 
and had not Lee been diligently expecting another attack, in- 
stead of a retreat, he might have subjected it to infinite dis- 
comfiture. It was to do us more injury, and not less, that he 
delayed to destroy the pontoon bridge and shell the town Avhile 
our troops were in it. 

The young man gloried in that great victory. 

" But," said I, " what did you gain ? It was all the 
worse for you that yovt succeeded then. That victory only 
prolonged the war, and involved greater loss. We do not 
look at those transient triumphs ; we look at the grand result. 
The Confederacy was finally swept out, and we are perfectly 
satisfied." 

" Well, so am I," he replied, looking me frankly in the face. 
" I tell you, if we had succeeded in establishing a separate 
government, this would have been the worst country, for a 
poor man, under the sun." 

"How so?" 

" There would have been no chance for Avhite labor. Every 
rich man would have owned his nigger mason, his nigger car- 
penter, his nigger blacksmith ; and the white mechanic, as 
well as the white farm-laborer, would have been crushed out." 

" You think, then, the South will be better off without 
slavery ? " 

" Certainly, I do. So does every white man that has to 
work for a living, if he is n't a fool." 



NEGRO WHO DIDN'T SEE THE FIGHT. 109 

" Then why did you figlit for it ? " 

" We was n't fighting for slavery ; we was fighting for our 
independence. That 's the way the most of us understood it ; 
though we soon found out it was the rich man's war, and not 
the pore man's. We was fighting against our own niterests, 
that 's shore ! " 

There is a private cemetery on the crest, surrounded by a 
brick walL Burnside's artillery had not spared it. I looked 
over the wall, which was badly smashed in places, and saw 
the overthrown monuments and broken tombstones lying on 
the ground. The heights all around were covered with weeds, 
and scarred by Rebel intrenchments ; here and there was an 
old apple-tree ; and I marked the ruins of two or three small 
brick houses. 

On the brow of the hill, overlooking the town, is the Marye 
estate, one of the finest about Fredericksburg before the blast 
of battle struck it. The house was large and elegant, occu- 
pying a beautiful site, and surrounded by terraces and shady 
lawns. Now if you would witness the results of artillery and 
infantry firing, visit that house. The pillars of the porch, 
built of brick, and covered with a cement of lime and white 
sand, were speckled wdth the marks of bullets. Shells and 
solid shot had made sad havoc with the walls and the wood- 
work inside. The windows were shivered, the partitions torn 
to pieces, and the doors perforated. 

I found a gigantic negro at work at a carpenter's bench in 
one of the low^er rooms. He seemed glad to receive company, 
and took me from the basement to the zinc-covered roof, show- 
ing me all the more remarkable shot-holes. 

" De Rebel sharpshooters was in de house ; dat 's what made 
de Yankees shell it so." 

" Where were the people who lived here ? " 

*' Dey all lef but me. I stopped to see de fight. I tell 
ye, I wouldn't stop to see anoder one! I thought I was 
go'n' to have fine fun, and tell all about it. I heerd de fight, 
but I didn't see it!" 

*' Were you frightened ? " 



110 THE FIELD OF FREDERICKSBURG. 

" Hoo ! " flinging up liis hands witli a ludicrous expression. 
" Don't talk about skeered ! I never was so skeered since 
I was bo'n ! I stood hyer by dis sher winder ; I 'spected to 
see de whole of it ; I know I was green ! I was look'n' to 
see de fir'n' down below dar, when a bullet come by me, lit ! 
quick as dat. ' Time fo' me to be away f 'om hyer ! ' and 
I started ; but I 'd no sooner turned about, when de bullets 
begun to strike de house jes' like dat ! " drumming with his 
fingers. " I went down-stars, and out dis sher house, qviick- 
er 'n any man o' my size ever went out a house befo'e ! Come, 
and I '11 show you whar I was hid." 

It was in the cellar of a little dairy-house, of which nothing 
was left but the walls. 

" I got in thar wid anoder cullud man. I thought I was 
as skeered as anybody could be ; but whew ! he was twicet 
as skeered as I was. B-r-r-r-r ! b-r-r-r-r ! de fir'n' kep' up a 
reg'lar noise like dat, all day long. Every time a shell struck 
anywhar near, I knowed de next would kill me. ' Jim,' says 
I, ' now de next shot will be our own ! ' Dem's de on'y wu'ds 
I spoke ; but he was so skeered he never spoke at all." 

" Were you here at the fight the year after ?" 

"Dat was when Shedwick [Sedgwick] come. I thought 
if dar was go'n' to be any fight'n', I 'd leave dat time, shore. I 
hitched up my oxen, think'n' I 'd put out, but waited fo' de 
mo'nin' to see. Dat was Sunday mo'nin'. I hadn't slep' 
none, so I jest thought I 'd put my head on my hand a minute 
till it growed light. I had n't mo'e 'n drapped asleep ; I 'd 
nodded oncet or twicet: so; " illustrating; " no longer 'n dat; 
when — c-r-r-r-i-, — I looked up, — all de wu'ld was fir'n' ! 
Shedwick's men dey run up de road, got behind de batteries 
on dis sher hill, captured every one ; and I never knowed how 
dey done it so quick. Dat was enough fo' me. If dar's go'n' 
to be any mo'e fight'n', I go whar da' an't no wa' ! " 

" A big fellow like you tell about being skeered ! " said the 
young Rebel. 

" I knowed de bigger a man was, de bigger de mark fo' de 
balls. I weighs two hundred and fifty-two pounds." 



SOUTHERN CONSISTENCY. Ill 

" AVlicre is your master ? " I asked. 

" I lia'n't got no master now ; Mr. Marye was my master. 
He 's over de mountain. I was sold at auction in Fredericks- 
burg oncet, and he bought mo fo' twelve hundred dolla's. 
Now he pays me wages, — thirty dolla's a month. I wo'ked 
in de mill while de wa' lasted. Men brought me co'n to 
grind. Some brought a gallon ; some brought two qua'ts ; it 
was a big load if anybody brought half a bushel. Dat's de 
way folks lived. Now he 's got anoder man in de mill, and 
he pays me fo' tak'n' keer o' dis sher place and fitt'n' it up a 
little." 

" Are you a carpenter ? " 

" Somethin' of a carpenter ; I kin do whatever I turns my 
hand to." 

The young Rebel afterwards corroborated this statement. 
Although he did not like niggers generally, and wished they 
were all out of the country, he said Charles (for that was the 
giant's name) was an exception ; and he gave him high praise for 
the fidelity and sagacity he had shown in saving his master's 
property from destruction. 

While we were sitting under the portico, a woman came up 
the hill, and began to talk and jest in a familiar manner with 
Charles. I noticed that my Rebel acquaintance looked ex- 
ceedinrrly dis2;usted. 

" That woman," said he to me, " has got a nigger husband. 
That 's what makes her talk that way. White folks won't 
associate M-ith her, and she goes with the darkies. We used to 
have lynch law for them cases. Such things wa'n't allowed. 
A nigser had better have been dead than be cauo;ht living 
with a white woman. The house would get torn down over 
their heads some night, and nobody would know who did it." 

" Are you sure such things were not allowed ? Five out of 
six of your colored population have white blood in their veins. 
How do you account for it ? " 

" O, that comes from white fathers ! " 

"And slave mothers," said I. "That I suppose was all 
right ; but to a stranger it does n't look very consistent. You 



112 THE FIELD OF FREDERICKSBURG. 

■would lynch a poor black man for living in wedlock witli a 
white woman, and receive into the best society white men who 
w^ere raising up illegitimate slave children by their colored 
mistresses." 

" Yes, that 's just what was done ; there 's no use denying 
it. I 've seen children sold at auction in Fredericksburg by 
their own fathers. But nobody ever thought it was just right. 
It always happened when the masters was in debt, and their 
property had to be taken." 

The field below the stone wall belonged to this young man's 
mother. It was now a cornfield ; a sturdy crop was growing 
where the dead had lain in heaps. 

"Soon as Richmond fell I came home; and 'Lijah and I 
went to work and put in that piece of corn. I didn't wait for 
Lee's surrender. Thousands did the same. We knew that 
if Richmond fell, the war would be removed from Virginia, and 
we had no notion of goincr to fight in other States. The Con- 
federate army melted away just like frost in the sun, so that 
only a small part of it remained to be surrendered." 

He invited me to go through the cornfield and see where 
the dead were buried. Near the middle of the piece a strip 
some fifteen yards long and four wide had been left unculti- 
vated. " There 's a thousand of your men buried in this hole ; 
that 's the reason we didn't plant here." Some distance below 
the cornfield Avas the cellar of an ice-house, in which five 
hundred Union soldiers were buried. And yet these were 
but a portion of the slain ; all the surrounding fields were 
scarred with graves. 

Returning to Fredericksburg, I visited the plain north- 
west of the town, also memorable for much hard fighting on 
that red day of December. I found a pack of government 
wagons there, an encampment of teamsters, and a few Yankee 
soldiers, who told me they were tired of doing nothing, and 
" tliree times as fast for going home " as they were before the 
war closed. 

In the midst of this plain, shaded by a pleasant grove, 
stands a brown brick mansion said to have been built by 



LACY HOUSE. 113 

Geor'Te Washington for his mother's family. Not far off is a 
monument erected to Mary, the mother of Washington, whose 
mortal remains rest here. It is of marble, measuring some 
nine feet square and fifteen in height, unfinished, capped with 
a mat of weeds, and bearing no inscription but the names of 
visitors who should have blushed to desecrate the tomb of the 
venerated dead. The monument has in other ways been 
sadly misused ; in the first place, by balls which nicked and 
chipped it during tlie battle ; and afterwards by relic-hunters, 
who, in their rage for carrying away some fragment of it, have 
left scarce a corner of cornice or pilaster unbroken. 

I had afterwards many walks about Fredericksburg, the 
most noteworthy of which was a morning-visit to the Lacy 
House, where Burnside had his headquarters. Crossing the 
Rappahannock on the pontoon bridge, I climbed the stone 
steps leading from terrace to terrace, and reached the long- 
neglected grounds and the old-fashioned Virginia mansion. It 
was entirely deserted. The doors were wide open, or broken 
from their hinges, the windows smashed, the floors covered with 
rubbish, and the walls with the names of soldiers and regi- 
ments, or pictures cut from the illustrated newspapers. 

The windows command a view of Fredericksburg and the 
battle-field ; and there I stood, and saw in imagination the 
ficrht reenacted, — the pontoniers at their work in the misty 
morning, the sharpshooters in rifle-pits and houses opposite 
driving them from it with their murderous fire, the shelling of 
the town, the troops crossing, the terrible roaring battle, the 
spouting flames, the smoke, the charging parties, and the hor- 
rible slaughter ; — I saw and heard it all again, and fancied 
for a time that I was the commanding general, whose eyes 
beheld, and whose wrung heart felt, what he would gladly 
haVe given his own life to prevent or retrieve. 
8 



114 TO CHANCELLORSVILLE. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

TO CHANCELLOKSVILLE. 

In conversation with my Rebel acquaintance at the Marye 
House, I had learned that his friend " 'Lijah " sometimes con- 
veyed travellers over the more distant battle-fields. Him, 
therefore, I sent to engage with his horse and buggy for the 
following day. 

Breakfast was scarcely over the next morning, when, as I 
chanced to look fi-om my hotel -window, I saw a thin-faced 
countryman drive up to the door in an old one-horse wagon 
with two seats, and a box half filled w^ith corn-stalks. I 
was admiring the anatomy of the horse, every prominent 
bone of which could be counted through his skin, when I 
heard the man inquiring for me. It was " 'Lijah," with his 
"horse and buggy." 

I was inclined to criticise the establishment, which was not 
altogether what I had been led to expect. 

" I allow he a'n't a fust-class boss," said Elijah. " Only 
give three dollars for him. Feed is skiu'ce and high. But 
let him rest this winter, and git some meal in him, and he '11 
make a plough crack next spring." 

" What are you going to do with those corn-stalks ? " 

" Fodder for the boss. They 're all the fodder he '11 git 
till night ; for we 're go'n' into a country wliar thar 's noth'n' 
mo'e for an animal to eat than thar is on the palm of my hand." 

I took a seat beside him, and made use of the stalks by 
placing a couple of bundles between my back and the sharp 
board wbich travellers were expected to lean against. Elijah 
cracked his whip, the horse frisked his tail, and struck into a 
cow-trot which pleased him. 

" You see, he '11 snake us over the ground right peart ! " 



ELIJAH A^B HIS MULE. 115 

He proceeded to tantalize me by telling what a mule he 
had, and what a little mare he had, at home. 

" She certainly goes over the ground ! I believe she can 
run ekal to anything in this country for about a mile. But 
she 's got a set of legs under her jest like a sheep's legs." 

He could not say enough in praise of the mule. 

" Paid eight hundred dollars for him in Confederate money. 
He earned a living for the whole family last winter. I used 
to go reg'lar up to Chancellorsville and the Wilderness, buy 
up a box of clothing, and go down in Essex and trade it off" 
for com." 

" What sort of clothing ? " 

" Soldiers' clothes from the battle-fields. Some was flung 
away, and some, I suppose, was stripped off the dead. Any 
number of families jest lived on what they got from the Union 
armies in that way. They'd pick up what garments they 
could lay hands on, wash 'em up and sell 'em. I 'd take a 
blanket, and git half a bushel of meal for it down in Essex. 
Then I 'd bring the meal back, and git maybe two blankets, 
or a blanket and a coat, for it. All with that little mule. 
He '11 haul a load for ye ! He '11 stick to the ground go'n' 
up hill jest like a dry-land tarrapin ! But I take the mare 
when I 'm in a hurry ; she makes them feet rattle ag'in the 
ground ! " 

We took the plank-road to Chancellorsville, passing through 
a waste country of weeds or undergrowth, like every other 
part of Virginia which I had yet seen. 

"All this region through yer," said Elijah, "used to be 
grow'd up to corn and as beautiful clover as ever you see. 
But since the wa', it 's all turned out to bushes and briers and 
hog-weeds. It 's gitt'n' a start ag'in now. I '11 show 'em 
how to do it. If we git in a crap o' wheat this fall, which I 
don't know if we sha'n't, we kin start three big teams, and 
whirl up twenty acres of land directly. That mule," etc. 
Elijah praised the small farmers. 

" People in ordinary sarcumstances along yer are a mighty 
industrious people. It 's the rich that keep this country down. 



116 TO CHANCELLORSVILLE. 

The way it generally is, a few own too much, and the rest 
own noth'n'. I know hundreds of thousands of acres of land 
put to no uset, which, if it was cut up into little farms, Avould 
make the country look thrifty. This is mighty good land ; 
clay bottom ; holds manure jest like a chany bowl does water. 
But the rich ones jest scratched over a little on 't with their 
slave labor, and let the rest go. They would n't sell ; let a 
young man go to 'em to buy, and they 'd say they did n't 
want no poo' whites around 'em ; they would n't have one, if 
they could keep shet of 'cm. And what was the result? 
Young men would go off to the West, if they was enterpris'n', 
and leave them that wa'n't enterpris'n' hyer to home. Then 
as the old heads died off, the farms would run down. The 
young women would marry the lazy young men, and raise up 
families of lazy children." 

The country all about Fredericksburg was very unhealthy. 
Elijah, on making inquiries, could hear of scarcely a family on 
the road exempt from sickness. 

" It was never so till sence the wa'. Now we have chills 
and fever, jest like they do in a new country. It 's owin' to 
the land all comin' up to weeds ; the dew settles in 'em and 
they rot, and that fills the air with the ager. I 've had the 
ager myself till about a fortnight ago ; then soon as I got shet 
of that, the colic took me. Eat too much on a big appetite, I 
suppose. I like to live well ; like to see plenty of everything 
on the table, and then I like to see every man eat a heap." 

I commended Elijah's practical sense ; ujion Avhicli he re- 
plied, — 

" The old man is right ignorant ; can't read the fust letter ; 
never went to school a day ; but the old man is right sharp ! " 

He was fond of speaking of himself in this way. He thought 
education a good thing, but allowed that all the education in 
the world could not give a man sense. He was fifty years 
old, and had got along thus far in life very Avell. 

" I reckon thar 's go'n' to be a better chance for the poo' 
man after this. The Union bein' held together was the great- 
est thing that could have happened for us." 



..i^lJAH'S ACCOUNT OF SEDGWICK'S RETREAT. 117 

" And yet you fought against it." 

" I was in the Confederate army two year and a half. I was 
opposed to secession ; but I got my head a httle turned after 
the State went out, and I enUsted. Then, when I had time 
to reconsider it all over, I diskivered we was wrong. I told 
the boys so. 

" ' Boys,' says I, ' when my time 's up, I 'm go'n' out of 
the army, and you won't see me in ag'in.' 

" ' You can't help that, old man,' says they ; ' fo' by that 
time the conscript law '11 be changed so 's to go over the heads 
of older men than you.' 

" ' Then,' says I, ' the fust chance presents itself, I fling 
down my musket and go spang No'th.' 

" They had me put under arrest for that, and kep' me in 
the guard-house seven months. I liked that well enough. I 
was saved a deal of hard march'n' and lay'n' out in the cold, 
that winter. 

" ' Why don't ye come in boys,' says I, ' and have a warm ? ' 
" I knowed what I was about ! . The old man was right 
ignorant, but the old man was right sharp ! " 

We passed the line of Sedgwick's retreat a few miles from 
Fredericksburg. 

" Shedrick's men was in line acrost the road h3-er, extendin' 
into the woods on both sides ; they had jest butchered their 
meat, and was ishyin' rations and beginnin' to cook their 
suppers, when Magruder struck 'em on the left flank." 
(Elijah was wrong; it was not Magruder, but McLaws. 
These local guides make many such mistakes, and it is neces- 
sary to be on one's guard against them.) " They jest got 
right up and skedaddled ! The whole line jest fxced to the 
right, and put for Banks's Ford. Thar 's the road they went. 
They left it piled so full of wagons, Magruder could n't follah, 
but his artillery jest run around by another road I '11 show ye, 
hard as ever they could lay their feet to the ground, wheeled 
their guns in position on the bluffs by the time Shedrick got 
cleverly to crossin', and played away. The way they heaped 
up Shedrick's men was awful! " 



118 TO CHANCELLORSVILLE. 

Every mile or two we came to a small farm-house, com- 
monly of logs, near which there was usually a small crop of 
corn growing. 

" Every man after he got home, after the fall of Richmond, 
put in to raise a little somethin' to eat. Some o' the com 
looks poo'ly, but it beats no corn at all, all to pieces." 

We came to one field which Elijah pronounced a " mon- 
strous fine crap." But he added, — 

" I 've got thirty acres to home not a bit sorrier 'n that. Ye 
see, that mule of mine," etc. 

I noticed — what I never saw in the latitude of New Eng- 
land — that the fodder had been pulled below the ears and 
tied in little bundles on the stalks to cure. Ingenious shifts 
for fences had been resorted to by the farmers. In some 
places the planks of the worn-out plank-road had been staked 
and lashed together to form a temporary enclosure. But the 
most common fence was what Elijah called " bresh wattlin'." 
Stakes were first driven into the ground, then pine or cedar 
brush bent in between them and beaten down with a maul. 

" Ye kin build a wattlin' fence that way so tight a rabbit 
can't eit through." 

On making inquiries, 1 found that farms of fine land could 
be had all through this region for ten dollars an aci'e. 

Elijah hoped that men from the North would come in and 
settle. 

" But," said he, " 't would be dangerous for any one to 
take possession of a confiscated farm. He would n't live a 
month." 

The larger land-owners are now more willing to sell. 

" Right smart o' their property was in niggers ; they 're 
pore now, and have to raise money. 

" The emancipation of slavery," added Elijah, " is Avo'kin' 
right for the country mo'e ways 'an one. The' a'n't two men 
in twenty, in middlin' sarcumstances, but that 's beginnin' 
to see it. I 'm no friend to the niggers, though. They ought 
all to be druv out of the country. They won't wo'k as long 
as they can steal. I have my little crap o' corn, and wheat. 



ELIJAH ON THE NEGROES. 119 

and po'k. When night comes, I must sleep ; then the niggers 
come and steal all I 've got." 

I pressed him to give an instance of the negroes' stealing 
his property. He could not say that they had taken anything 
from him lately, but they " used to " rob his cornfields and 
hen-roosts, and "they would again." Had he ever caught 
them at it ? No, he could not say that he ever had. Then 
how did he know that the thieves were negroes ? He knew 
it, because "niggers would steal* 

" Won't white folks steal too, sometimes ? " 

" Yes," said Elijah, " some o' the poo' whites are a durned 
sight wus 'n the niggers ! " 

" Then why not drive them out of the country too ? You 
see," said I, "your charges against the negroes are vague, 
and amount to nothing." 

" I own," he replied, " thar 's now and then one that 's ekal 
to any white man. Thar 's one a-comin' thar." 

A load of wood was approaching, drawn by two horses 
abreast and a mule for leader. A white-haured old negro was 
riding the mule. 

" He is the greatest man ! " said Elijah, after we had passed. 
" He 's been the support of his master's family for twenty 
vear and over. He kin manage a heap better 'n his master 
kin. The' a'n't a farmer in the country kin beat him. He 
keeps right on jest the same now he 's free ; though I suppose 
he gits wages." 

" You acknowledge, then, that some of the negroes are 
superior men ? " 

" Yes, thar 's about ten in a hundred, honest and smart as 
anybody." 

" That," said I, " is a good many. Do you suppose you 
could say more of the white race, if it had just come out of 
slavery ? " 

"I don't believe," said Elijah, "that yo could say as 
much!" 

We passed the remains of the house " whar Harrow was 
shot." It had been burned to the ground. 



120 TO CHANCELLORS VILLE. 

" You 've heerd about' Harrow ; he was Confederate com- 
missary ; he stole mo'e hosses f om the people, and po'ed the 
money down his own throat, than would have paid fo' fo'ty 
men like him, if he was black." 

A mile or two farther on, we came to another house. 
" Hyer's whar the man lives that killed Harrow. He was 
in the army, and because he objected to some of Harrow's 
doin's, Harrow had him arrested, and treated him very much 
amiss. That ground into hi» conscience and feelin's, and he 
deserted fo' no other puppose than to shoot him. He 's a 
mio-hty smart fellah ! He '11 strike a man side the head, and 
soon 's his fist leaves it, his foot 's tliar. He shot Harrow in 
that house you see burnt to the ground, and then went spang 
to Washington. O, he was sharp ! " 

On our return we met the slayer of Harrow riding home 
from Fredericksburg on a mule, — a fine-looking young fel- 
low, of blonde complexion, a pleasant countenance, finely chis- 
elled nose and lips, and an eye full of sunshine. " Jest the 
best-hearted, nicest young fellah in the wo'ld, till ye git him 
mad ; then look out ! " I think it is often the most attractive 
persons, of fine temperaments, who are capable of the most 
terrible wrath when roused. 

The plank-road was in such a ruined condition that nobody 
thouo-ht of driving on it, although the dirt road beside it was 
in places scarcely better. The back of the seat was cruel, 
notwithstanding the corn-stalks. But by means of much 
persuasion, enforced by a good whip, Elijah kept the old horse 
iocrcvino- on. Oak-trees, loaded with acorns, grew beside the 
road. Black-walnuts, already beginnmg to lose then' leaves, 
huno- their delicate balls in the clear light over our heads. 
Poke-weeds, dark with ripening berries, wild grapes festoon- 
in o- bush and tree, sumachs thrusting up through the foliage 
their sanguinary spears, persimmon-trees, gum-trees, red cedars, 
with their bluish-green clusters, chestnut-oaks, and chincapins, 
adorned the wild wayside. 

So we approached Chancellorsville, twelve miles from Fred- 
ericksburg. Elijah was raised m that region, and knew every- 
body. 



CHANCELLORSVILLE FARM. 121 

" Many a frolic have I had runnin' the deer through these 
woods ! Soon as the dogs started one, he 'd put fo' the river, 
cross, take a turn on t' other side, and it would n't be an hour 
'fo'e he 'd be back ag'in. Man I lived with used to have a 
mare that was trained to hunt ; if she was in the field and 
heard the dogs, she 'd whirl her tail up on her back, lope the 
fences, and go spang to the United States Ford, git thar 'fo'e 
the dogs would, and hunt as well without a rider as with 

one." 

But since then a far different kind of hunting, a richer 
blood than the deer's, and other sounds than the exciting yelp 
of the dogs, had rendered that region famous. 

"Hyer we come to the Chancellorsville farm. Many a 
poo' soldier's knapsack was emptied of his clothes, after the 
battle, along this road ! " said Elijah, remembering last winter's 
business with his mule. 

The road runs through a large open field bounded by woods. 
The marks of hard fighting were visible fi-om afar off". A 
growth of saplings edging the woods on the south had been 
killed by volleys of musketry: they looked like thickets of 
bean-poles. The ground everywhere, in the field and in the 
woods, was strewed with mementos of the battle, — rotting 
knapsacks and haversacks, battered canteens and tin cups, and 
fragments of clothing which Elijah's customers had not deemed 
it worth the while to pick up. On each side of the road were 
breastworks and rifle-pits extending into the woods. The 
clearing, once a well-fenced farm of grain-fields and clover- 
lots, was now a dreary and deserted common. Of the Chan- 
cellorsville House, formerly a large brick tavern, only the 
half-fallen walls and chimney-stacks remained. Here General 
Hooker had his headquarters until the wave of battle on 
Sunday morning rolled so hot and so near that he was com- 
pelled to withdraw. The house was soon after fired by a 
Rebel shell, when full of wounded men, and burned. 

" Every place ye see these big bunches of weeds, that s 
whar tha' was bosses or men buried," said Elijah. " These 
holes are whar the bones have been dug up for the bone-factory 
at Fredericksburg." 



122 TO CHANCELLORSVILLE. 

It was easy for the bone-seekers to determine where to dig. 
The common was comparatively barren, except where grew 
those gigantic clumps of weeds. I asked Elijah if he thought 
many human bones went to the factory. 

" Not unless by mistake. But people a'n't always very par- 
tic'lar about mistakes thar 's money to be made by." 

Seeing a small enclosure midway between the road and the 
woods on the south, we walked to it, and found it a burying- 
ground ridged with unknown graves. Not a head-board, not 
an inscription, indicated who were the tenants of that little 
lonely field. And Elijah knew nothing of its history ; it had 
been set apart, and the scattered dead had been gathered to- 
gether and buried there, since he passed that way. 

We found breastworks thrown up all along by the plank- 
road west of the farm, — the old worn planks having been put 
to good service in their construction. The tree-trunks pierced 
by balls, the boughs lopped off by shells, the strips of timber 
cut to pieces by artillery and musketry fire, showed how des- 
perate the struggle on that side had been. The endeavors of 
the Confederates to follow up with an overwhelming victory 
Jackson's swift and telling blows on our right, and the equally 
determined efforts of our men to retrieve that disaster, rendered 
this the scene of a furious encounter. 

Elijah thought that if Jackson had not been killed by his 
own men after delivering that thunderstroke. Hooker would 
have been annihilated. "Stonewall" was undoubtedly the 
enemy's best fighting General. His death was to them equal 
to the loss of many brigades. With regard to the manner of 
his death there can be no longer any doubt. I have conversed 
with Confederate officers who were in the battle, all of whom 
agree as to the main fiict. General Jackson, after shattering our 
right wing, posted his pickets at night with directions to fire 
upon any man or body of men that might approach. He after- 
wards rode forward to reconnoitre, returned inadvertently by 
the same road, and was shot by his own orders. 



DAYS OF ANXIETY. 123 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE WILDERNESS. 

The Battle of Bull Run in 1861, Pope's campaign, and 
Burnside's defeat at Fredericksburg in 1862, and, lastly, 
Hooker's unsuccessful attempt at Cliancellorsville in the spring 
of 1863, had shown how hard a road to Richmond this was to 
travel. Repeatedly, as we tried it and failed, the hopes of the 
Confederacy rose exultant ; the heart of the North sank as 
often, heavy with despair. McClellan's Peninsular route had 
resulted still more fatally. We all remember the anguish and 
anxiety of those days. But the heart of the North shook off 
its despair, listened to no timid counsels ; it was growing fierce 
and obdurate. We no longer received the news of defeat with 
cries of dismay, but with teeth close-set, a smile upon the quiver- 
ing lips, and a burning fire within. Had the Rebels triumphed 
ao-ain ? Then so much the worse for them ! Had we been 
once more repulsed with slaughter from their strong line of 
defences ? Was the precious blood poured out before them all 
in vain ? At last it should not be in vain ! Though it should 
cost a new thirty years' war and a generation of lives, the red 
work we had begun must be completed ; ultimate failure was 
impossible, ultimate triumph certain. 

This inflexible spirit found its embodiment in the leader of 
the final campaigns against the Rebel capital. It was the deep 
spirit of humanity itself, ready to make the richest sacrifices, 
calm, determined, inexorable, moving steadily towards the 
great object to be achieved. It has been said that General 
Grant did not consider the lives of his men. Then the people 
did not consider them. But the truth lies here : precious as 
were those fives, something lay beyond far more precious, and 



124 THE WILDERNESS. 

they were the needful price paid for it. We had learned the 
dread price, we had duly weighed the worth of the object to be 
purchased ; what then was the use of hesitating and higgling ? 

We were approaching the scene of Grant's first great blow 
aimed at the gates of the Rebel capital. On the field of 
Chancellorsville you already tread the borders of the field of 
the Wilderness, — if that can be called a field which is a mere 
interminable forest, slashed here and there with roads. 

Passing straight along the plank-road, we came to a large 
farm-house, which had been gutted by soldiers, and but re- 
cently reoccupied. It was still in a scarcely habitable condi- 
tion. However, we managed to obtain, what we stood greatly 
in need of, a cup of cold water. I observed that it tasted 
strongly of iron. 

" The reason of that is, we took twelve camp-kettles out of 
the well," said the man of the house, " and nobody knows how 
many more there are down there." 

The place is known as Locust Grove. In the edge of the 
forest, but a little farther on, is the Wilderness Church, — a 
square-framed building, which showed marks of such usage 
as every uninhabited house receives at the hands of a wild 
soldiery. Red Mars has little respect for the temples of the 
Prince of Peace. 

" Many a time have I been to meet'n' in that shell, and sot 
on hard benches, and heard long sermons ! " said Elijah. 
" But I reckon it '11 be a long while befo'e them doo's are 
darkened by a congregation ag'in. Thar a'n't the population 
through hyer thar used to be. Oncet we 'd have met a hun- 
dred wagons on this road go'n' to market ; but I count we 
ha'n't met mo'e 'n a dozen to-day." 

Not far beyond the church we approached two tall guide- 
posts erected where the road forks. The one on the right 
pointed the way to the " Wilderness National Cemetery, No. 
1, 4 miles," by the Orange Court-House turnpike. The other 
indicated the " Wilderness National Cemetery, No. 2," by the 
plank-road. 

" All this has been done sence I was this way," said Elijah. 



SCENES IN THE WILDERNESS. 125 

We kept the plank-road, — or rather the clay road beside it, 
which stretched before us dim in the hollows, and red as brick 
on the hillsides. We passed some old fields, and entered the 
great Wilderness, — a high and dry comitry, thickly over- 
grown with dwarfish timber, chiefly scrub oaks, pines, and 
cedars. Poles lashed to trees for tent-supports indicated where 
our regiments had encamped ; and soon we came upon 
abundant evidences of a great battle. Heavy breastworks 
thrown up on Brock's cross-road, planks from the plank-road 
piled up and lashed against trees in the woods, to form a shelter 
for our pickets, knapsacks, haversacks, pieces of clothing, frag- 
ments of harness, tin plates, caaiteens, some pierced with balls, 
fragments of shells, with here and there a round-shot, or a 
shell unexploded, straps, buckles, cartridge-boxes, socks, old 
shoes, rotting letters, desolate tracts of perforated and broken 
trees, — all these signs, and others sadder still, remained to 
tell their silent story of the great fight of the Wilderness. 

A cloud passed over the sun : all the scene became sombre, 
and hushed with a strange brooding stillness, broken only by 
the noise of twigs crackling under my feet, and distant growls 
of thunder. A shadow fell upon my heart also, as from the 
wing of the Death- Angel, as I wandered through the woods, 
meditating upon what I saw. Where were the feet that wore 
those empty shoes ? Where was he whose proud waist was 
buckled in that bolt ? Some soldier's heart was made happy 
by that poor, soiled, tattered, illegible letter, which rain and 
mildew have not spared ; some mother's, sister's, wife's, or 
sweetheart's hand, doubtless, penned it ; it is the broken end 
of a thread which unwinds a whole life-history, could we but 
follow it rightly. Where is that soldier now ? Did he fall in 
the fight, and does his home know him no more ? Has the 
poor wife or stricken mother waited long for the answer to that 
letter, which never came, and will never come ? And this 
cap, cut in two by a shot, and stiff with a strange incrustation, 
— a small cap, a mere boy's, it seems, — Avhere now the fair 
head and wavy hair that wore it ? Oh, mother and sisters at 
home, do you still mourn for your drummer-boy ? Has the 



126 THE WILDERNESS. 

story reached you, — how he went into the fight to carry off 
his wounded comrades, and so lost his hfe for their sakes ? — 
for so I imagine the tale which will never be told. 

And what more appalling spectacle is this ? In the cover 
of thick woods, the unburied remains of two soldiers, — two 
skeletons side by side, two skulls almost touching each other, 
like the cheeks of sleepers ! I came upon them unawares as I 
picked my way among the scrub oaks. I knew that scores of 
such sights could be seen here a few weeks before ; but the 
United States Government had sent to have its unburied dead 
collected together in the two national cemeteries of the Wilder- 
ness ; and I had hoped the work was faithfully done. 

" They was No'th-Carolinians ; that 's why they did n't buiy 
'em," said Elijah, after a careful examination of the buttons 
fallen from the rotted clothing. 

The ground where they lay had been fought over repeat- 
edly, and the dead of both sides had fallen there. The buttons 
may, therefore, have told a true story : North-Carolinians they 
may have been ; yet I could not believe that the true reason 
why they had not been decently interred. It must have been 
that these bodies, and others we found afterwards, were over- 
looked by the party sent to construct the cemeteries. It was 
shameful negligence, to say the least. 

The cemeteiy was near by, — a little clearing in the woods 
by the roadside, thirty yards square, surrounded by a picket 
fence, and comprising seventy trenches, each containing the 
remains of I know not how many dead. Each trench was 
marked with a headboard inscribed with the invariable words : 

" Unknown United States soldiers, killed May, 1864." 

Elijah, to whom I read the inscription, said, ])ertinently, that 
the words United States soldiers indicated plainly that it had 
not been the intention to buiy Rebels there. No doubt : but 
those might at least have been buried in the woods Avhere they 
fell. 

As a grim sarcasm on this neglect, somebody had flung three 
human skulls, picked up in the woods, over the paling into the 
cemetery, where they lay blanching among the graves. 



THE FIRE IN THE WOODS. 127 

Close by the southeast corner of the fence were three or 
four Rebel graves with old headboards. Elijah called my 
attention to them, and wished me to read what the headboards 
said. The main ftxct indicated was, that those buried there 
were North-Carolinians. Elijah considered this somehow 
corroborative of*his theory derived from the byittons. The 
graves were shallow, and the settling of the earth over the 
bodies had left the feet of one of the poor fellows sticking out. 

The shadows which darkened the woods, and the ominous 
thunder-growls, culminated in a shower. Elijah crawled under 
his wacron : I souo;ht the shelter of a tree ; the horse champed 
his fodder, and we ate our luncheon. How quietly upon the 
leaves, how softly upon the graves of the cemetery, fell the 
perpendicular rain ! The clouds parted, and a burst of sun- 
light smote the Wilderness ; the rain still poured, but every 
drop was illumined, and I seemed standing in a shower of silver 
meteors. 

The rain over, and luncheon finished, I looked about for 
some solace to my palate after the dry sandwiches moistened 
only by the drippings from the tree, — seeking a dessert in the 
Wilderness. Summer grapes hung their just ripened clusters 
from the vine-laden saplings, and the chincapin bushes were 
starred with opening burrs. I followed a woodland path 
embowered with the glistening boughs, and plucked, and ate, 
and mused. The ground was level, and singularly free from 
the accumulations of twigs, branches, and old leaves with 
which forests usually abound. I noticed, however, many 
charred sticks and half-burnt roots and logs. Then the terrible 
recollection overtook me : these were the woods that wei'e on 
fire during the battle. I called Elijah. 

" Yes, all this was a flame of fire while the fight was go'n' 
on. It was full of dead and wounded men. Cook and Ste- 
vens, farmers over hyer, men I know, heard the screams of 
the poor fellahs burnin' up, and come and dragged many a one 
out of the fire, and laid 'em in the road." 

The woods were full of Rebel graves, with here and there 
a heap of half-covered bones, where several of the dead had 
been hurriedly buried together. 



128 THE WILDERNESS. 

I had seen enough. We returned to the cemetery. Elijah 
hitched up his horse, and we drove back along the plank-road, 
cheered by a rainbow which spanned the Wilderness and 
moved its bright arch onward over Chancellorsville towards 
Fredericksburg, brightening and fading, and brightening still 
again, hke tbe hope which gladdened the nation's eye after 
Grant's victory. 



ELIJAH "CUT." 129 



CHAPTER XVI. 

SPOTTSYLVANIA. COUKT-HOUSE. 

Elijah wished to drive me the next day to Spottsylvania 
Court-House, and, as an inducement for me to employ him, 
promised to tackle up his mare. He also proposed various 
devices for softening the seats of his wagon. No ingenuity 
of plan, however, sufficed to cajole me. There was a Hvery- 
stable in Fredericksburg, and I had conceived a strong preju- 
dice in its favor. 

The next morning, accordingly, there might have been seen 
wheeling up to the tavern-door a shining vehicle, — a bran- 
new buggy with the virgin gloss upon it, — drawn by a 
prancing iron-gray in a splendid new harness. The sarcastic 
stable-man had witnessed my yesterday's departure and return, 
and had evidently exhausted the resources of his establishment 
to furnish forth a dazzling contrast to Elijah's sorry outfit. 
The driver was a youth who wore his cap rakishly over his 
left eyebrow. I took a seat by his side on a cushion of the 
softest, and presently might have been seen riding out of Fred- 
ericksburg in that brilliant style, — nay, was seen, by one 
certainly, who was cut to the heart. We drove by the " stone- 
wall " road under the Heights, and passed a house by the 
corner of which a thin-visaged " old man " of fifty was watering 
a sad little beast at a well. The beast was " that mare " ; and 
the old man was Elijah. I shall never forget the look he gave 
me. I bade him a cheerful good-moming ; but his voice stuck 
in his throat ; he could not say " good-morning." Our twin- 
kling wheels almost grazed the hubs of the old wagon standing 
in the road as we passed. 

That I might have nothing to regret, the stable-keeper had 
given me a driver who was in the Spottsylvania battle. 



130 SPOTTSYLVANIA COURT-HOUSE. 

*' You cannot have seen niucli service, at your age," I said, 
examining Ins boyish features. 

" I was four year in de army, anyhow," he rephed, spitting 
tobacco-juice with an air of old experience. " I enhsted when 
I was thirteen. I was under de quartermaster at fust ; but de 
last two year I was in de artillery." 

I observed that he used de for the almost invariably, with 
many other peculiarities of expression which betrayed early 
association with negroes. 

" What is your name ? " 

« Richard H. Hicks." 

" What is your middle name ? " 

" I ha'n't got no middle name." 

" What does the H stand for ? " 

" H stands for Hicks : Richard H. Hicks ; dat 's Avhat dey 
tell me." 

" Can't you read ? " 

" No, I can't read. 1 never went to school, and never had 
no chance to learn." 

Somehow this confession touched me with a sadness I had 
not felt even at the sight of the dead men in the woods. He, 
young, active, naturally intelligent, was dead to a world with- 
out which this world would seem to us a blank, — the world 
of literature. To him the page of a book, the column of a 
newspaper, was meaningless. Had he been an old man, or 
black, or stupid, I should not have been so much surprised. 
I thought of Shakspeare, David, the prophets, the poets, the 
romancers ; and as my mind glanced from name to name on 
the glittering entablatures, I seemed to be standing in a glorious 
temple, with a bhnd youth at my side. 

" Did you ever hear of Sir Walter Scott? " 

" No, I never heerd of that Scott. But I know a William 
Scott." 

" Did you ever hear of Longfellow ? " 

" No, I never heerd of him ? " 

" Did you never hear of a great Enghsh poet called Lord 
Byron ? " 



DEAD LIEN'S CLOTHES. 1%1 

" No, sir, I never knowed clar Avas such a man." 

What a gulf betwixt his mind and mine ! Sitting side by 
side there, Ave were yet as far apart as the great globe's poles. 

" Do you mean to go through life in such ignorance ? " 

" I don't know ; I 'd learn to read if I had de chance." 

" Find a chance ! make a chance ! Even the little negro 
boys are getting the start of you." 

" I reckon I '11 go to school some dis winter," said he. 
" Dar 's go'n' to be a better chance fo' schools now ; dat 's 
what dey say." 

" Why now ? " I asked. 

" I don't know ; on'y dey say so." 

" You think, then, it was a good thing that the Confederacy 
got used up and slavery abolished ? " 

" It mought be a good thing. All I know is, it 's so, and it 
can't be ho'ped" (helped). " It suits me well enough, I 've 
been gitt'n' thirty dollars a month dis summer, and that 's 
twicet mo'e 'n I ever got befo'e." 

I could not discover that this youth of seventeen had ever 
given the great questions involving the welfare of his country 
a serious thousht. However, the vague belief he had imbibed 
regarding better times coming in consequence of emancipation, 
interested me as a still further evidence of the convictions 
entertained by the poorer classes on tliis subject. 

As we rode over the hills behind Fredericksburg, a young 
fellow came galloping after us on a mule. 

"Whar ye go'n', Dick?" 

" I 'm go'n' to de battle-field wl' dis gentleman." 

" He 's from the No'th, then," said the young fellow. 

" How do you know that ? " I asked. 

" Because no South'n man ever goes to the battle-fields : we 
've seen enough of 'em." He became very sociable as we rode 
along. " Ye see that apple-tree ? I got a right good pair o' 
pants off one o' your soldier's under that tree once." 

"Was he dead?" 

" Yes. He was one of Sedgwick's men ; he Avas killed when 
SedgAvick took the Heights. Shot through the head. The 



132 SPOTTSYLVANIA COURT-HOUSE. 

pants Ava'n't hurt none." And putting spurs to his mule, lie 
galloped ahead. 

I noticed that he and Richard, like many of the young men, 
white and black, I had seen about Fredericksburg, wore United 
. States army trousers. 

" Dey was all we could git one while," said Richard. " I 
reckon half our boys 'u'd liave had to go widout pants if it 
had n't been for de Union army. Dar was right smart o' 
trad'n' done in Yankee clothes, last years o' de wa'." 

" Did you rob a dead soldier of those you have on ? " 

" No ; I bought dese in Fredericksburg. I never robbed a 
dead man." 

" But how did you know they were not taken from a 
corpse ? " 

" Mought be ; but it could n't be ho'ped. A poo' man can't 
be choice." 

Richard expressed great contempt — inspired by envy, I 
thought — of the young chap riding the mule. 

" United States gov'ment give away a hundred and fifty 
old wore-out mules in Fredericksburg, not long ago ; so now 
every lazy fellow ye see can straddle his mule ! He a'n't no- 
body, though he thinks he 's a heavy coon-dog ! " 
- " What do you mean by a heavy coon-dog f " 

" Why, ye see, when a man owns a big plantation, and a 
heap o' darkeys, and carries a heavy pocket, or if he 's do'n' a 
big thing, den we call him a heavy coon-dog. Jeff Davis was 
a heavy coon-dog ; but he 's a light coon-dog now ! " 

Our route lay through a rough, hilly country, never more 
than very thinly inhabited, and now scarcely that. About 
every two miles we passed a poor log house in the woods, or 
on the edge of overgrown fields, — sometimes tenantless, but 
oftener occupied by a pale, poverty-smitten family afflicted with 
the chills. I do not remember more than two or three framed 
houses on the road, and they looked scarcely less disconsolate 
than their log neighbors. 

It is twelve miles from Fredericksburg to Spottsylvania 
Court-House. At the end of nine or ten miles we beo-an to 



COUNTY CLERK. 1S3 

meet with signs of military operations, — skirmish-lines, rifle- 
pits, and graves by the roadside. 

Rising a gentle ascent, we had a view of the Court-House, 
and of the surrounding country, — barren, hilly fields, with 
here and there a scattered tree, or clump of trees, commonly 
pines, and boundaries of heavier timber beyond. There were 
breastworks running in various directions, — along by the road, 
across the road, and diagonally over the crests. The country- 
was all cut up with them ; and I found the Rebel works strangely 
mixed up with our own. As our army advanced, it had pos- 
sessed itself of the enemy's rifle-pits, skirmish-line, and still 
more important intrenchments, and converted them to its own 
use. 

Grant's main line of breastworks, very heavy, constructed 
of rails and stakes and earth, crosses the road at nearly right 
angles, and stretches away out of sight on either side over the 
hills and into the woods. I was reminded of what Elijah had 
told me the day before at Brock's Road, in the Wilderness. 
" Grant's breastworks run thirty miles through the countiy, 
from near Ely's Ford on the Rapidan, spang past Spottsyl- 
vany Court-House and the Mattapony River." 

The road to the Court-House runs south. On the left was 
Beverly's house, and a shattered empty house on the right 
Richard pointed out the hill on which his battery was stationed 
early in the battle. " We had to git away f 'om dar, though. 
Your batteries drove us." 

We rode on to the Court-House : a goodlybrick building, with 
heavy pillars in front, one of which had been broken off" by a 
shell, leaving a corner of the portico hanging in the air. There 
were but six other buildings of any importance in the place, — 
one jail, one tavern, (no school-house,) one private dwelling, 
and three churches ; all of brick, and all more or less battered 
by artillery. 

Entering the Court-House amid heaps of rubbish which lit- 
tered the yard about the doors, I had the good fortune to find 
the county clerk at his desk. He received me politely, and 
ofiered to show me about the building. It had been well 



134 SPOTTSYLVANIA COURT-HOUSE. 

riddled by shot and shell ; but masons and carpenters were at 
"work repairing damages ; so that there was a prospect of the 
county, in a few months, having a court-house again. 

" What is most to be regretted," the clerk said, " is the 
destruction of documents which can't be restored. All the 
records and papers of the court were destroyed by the Union 
soldiers after they got possession." And he showed me a 
room heaped with the fragments. It looked like a room in a 
rag-man's warehouse. 

Returning to his office, he invited me to sit down, and com- 
menced talking freely of the condition and prospects of the 
country. The area of corn-land planted was small ; but the 
soil had been resting two or three years, the season had 
been favorable, and the result was an excellent crop. " We 
shall probably have a surplus to dispose of for other neces- 
saries." The county had not one third the number of horses, 
nor one tenth the amount of stock, it had before the war. 
Many families were utterly destitute. They had nothing 
whatever to live upon until the corn-harvest ; and many would 
have nothino; then. The o-overnment had been feeding as 
many as fifteen hundred persons at one time. 

" How many of these Avcre blacks ? " 

"Perhaps one fifth." 

" How large a proportion of the population of the county 
are blacks ? " 

" Not quite one half." 

" The colored population require proportionately less assist- 
ance, then, than the M-hite?" He admitted the fact. "How 
happens it?" I inquired; for he had previously told me the 
old hackneyed tale, that the negroes would not work, and that 
in consequence they Avere destined to perish like the Indians. 

" They '11 steal," said he ; and he made use of this expres- 
sion, which he said was proverbial : " An honest nigger is as 
rare as a lock of har on the palm of my hand." 

"But," I objected, "it seems hardly possible for one class 
of people to live by stealing in a country you describe as so 
destitute." 



IGNORANCE OF THE LOWER CLASSES. 135 

" A nigger will live on almost nothing," he replied. " It 
is n't to be' denied, however, but that some of them work." 

He criticised severely the government's system of feeding 
the destitute. " Hundreds are obtaining assistance who are 
not entitled to any. They have only to go to the overseers 
of the poor appointed by government, put up a poor mug, and 
ask for a certificate in a weak voice ; they get it, and come 
and draw their rations. Some draw rations both here and at 
Fredericksburg, thus obtaining a double support, while they 
are well able to work and earn their living, if left to themselves. 
The system encourages idleness, and does more harm than good. 
All these evils could be remedied, and more than half the ex- 
pense saved the government, if it would intrust the entire man- 
agement of the matter in the hands of citizens." 

" Is it the whites, or the blacks, who abuse the government's 
bounty?" 

" The whites." 

" It appears, then, that they have the same faults you ascribe 
to the blacks : they are not over-honest, and they will not 
work unless obliged to." 

" Yes, there are shiftless whites to be sure. There 's a 
place eight miles west from here, known as Texas, inhabited 
by a class of poor whites steeped in vice, ignorance, and crime 
of every description. They have no comforts, and no enei'gy 
to work and obtain them. They have no books, no morality, 
no religion ; they go clothed like savages, half sheltered, and 
half fed, — except that government is now supporting them." 

" Do the whites we are feeding come mostly from that 
region ? *' 

" O, no ; they come from all over the county. Some walk 
as far as twenty miles to draw their fortnight's or three weeks' 
rations. Some were in good circumstances before the war; 
and some are tolerably well off now. A general impression 
prevails that this support comes from a tax on the county; 
so every man, whether he needs it or not, rushes in for a 
share. It is impossible to convince the country people that 
it is the United States government that is feeding them. Why, 



136 SPOTTSYLVANIA COURT-HOUSE. 

sir, there are men in the back districts who "will not yet 
believe that the war is over, and slavery at an end ! " 

" It appears," said I, " that ignorance is not confined to the 
region you call Texas ; and that, considering all things, the 
whites are even more degraded than the blacks. Why 
does n't some prophet of evil arise and predict that the white 
race, too, will die out because it is vicious and will not 
work?" 

" The whites are a different race, sir, — a different race," 
was the emphatic, but not very satisfactory reply. " The 
negro cannot live without the care and protection of a mas- 
ter." 

" You think, then, the abolition of slavery a great misfor- 
tune ? " 

" A great misfortune to the negroes, certainly ; but not to 
the whites : we shall be better off without them." 

" It is singular that the negroes have no fear of the fate you 
predict for them. They say, on the contrary, ' We have been 
supporting our masters and their families all our lives, and now 
it is a pity if we cannot earn a living for ourselves.' " 

" Well, I hope they will succeed ! " 

This is the reply the emancipated slave-owners almost in- 
variably make to the above argument ; sometimes sarcastically, 
sometimes gravely, sometimes commiseratingly, but always in- 
creduloitsly. " The negro is fated ; " this is the real or pre- 
tended belief; and this they repeat, often with an ill-concealed 
spirit of vindictiveness, an " I-told-you-so ! " air of triumph, 
until one is forced to the conclusion that their prophecy is 
their desire. 



POLICY OF SLAVE-OWNERS. 137 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THE FIELD OF SPOTTSYLVANIA. 

I WALKED on to the tavern where Richard H. Hicks 
was baiting his horse. The landlord took me to a lumber- 
room where he kept, carefully locked up, a very remarkable 
curiosity. It was the stump of a tree, eleven inches in diam- 
eter, which had been cut off by bullets — not by cannon-shot, 
but by leaden bullets — in the Spottsylvania fight. It looked 
like a colossal scrub-broom. " I had a stump twice as big as 
this, cut off by bullets in the same way, only much smoother ; 
but some Federal officers took it from me and sent it to the 
War Department at Washington." 

He had many battle-scars about his house to show ; one of 
which I remember : " A shell come in through the wall thar, 
wrapped itself up in a bed that stood hyer, and busted in five 
pieces." 

In one of the rooms I found -a Union officer lying on a 
lounge, sick with the prevailing fever. He seemed glad to 
see a Northern face, and urged me to be seated. 

" It is fearfully lonesome here ; and just now I have no 
companion but the ague." 

Learning that he had been some time in command of the 
post, I inquired the reason why the citizens appeared so eager 
to save the government expense in feeding their poor. 

" It is very simple : they wish to get control of the business 
in order to cut off the negroes. They had rather have the 
assistance the government affords withdrawn altogether, than 
that the freedmen should come in for a share. It is their 
policy to keep the blacks entirely dependent upon their former 
masters, and consequently as much slaves as before." 



133 THE FIELD OF SPOTTSYLVANIA. 

" You of course hear many complaints that the blacks Avill 
not work ? " 

" Yes, and they are true in certain cases : they will not work 
for such wacjes as their late owners are willing; to o-ive ; in other 
words, they will not work for less than nothing. Rut Avhen 
they have encouragement they work very well, in their fashion, 
— which is not the Yankee fashion, certainly, but the fashion 
which slavery has bred them up to. They have not yet learned 
to appreciate, however, the binding character of a contract. It 
is a new thing to them. Besides, the master too often sets 
them bad examples by failing to keep his own engagements. 
He has been in the habit of breaking his promises to them at 
his convenience ; and now he finds fault that they do not keep 
theirs any better. The masters have not yet learned how to 
treat their old servants under the new conditions. They cannot 
learn that they are no longer slaves. That is one great source 
of trouble. On the other hand, where the freedman receives 
rational, just, and kind treatment, he behaves well and works 
well, almost without exception. I expect a good deal of diffi- 
culty soon. The negroes have in many places made contracts 
to work for a part of the crop ; now when the corn comes to 
be divided, their ideas and their master's, with regard to what 
' a part ' of the crop is, will be found to differ considerably. I 
was not an anti-slavery man at home," he added ; " and I give 
you simply the results of my observation since I have been in 
the South." 

" What do you think would be the effect if our troops were 
withdrawn ? " 

" I hardly know ; but I should expect one of two things : 
either that the freedmen would be reduced to a worse condition 
than they were ever in before, or that they would rise in in- 
surrection." 

The landlord wished me to go and look at his corn. It was 
certainly a noble crop. The tops of the monstrous ears towered 
six or eight feet from the ground ; the tops of the stalks at 
least twelve or fourteen feet. He maintained that it would 
average fifty bushels (of shelled corn) to the acre. I thought 
the estimate too high. 



SCENE OF THE DECISIVE CONFLICT. 139 

" Good corn," said he, " measures finely ; sorry corn porely. 
And consider, not a spoonful of manure has been put on this 
ground fo' fou' years." 

" But the ground has been resting ; and that is as good as ' 
manure." 

" Yes ; but it 's mighty good soil that will do as well as this. 
Now tell your people, if they want to buy good land cheap, 
hyer 's their chance. I 've got a thousand acres ; and I '11 
sell off seven hundred acres, claired or timber land, to suit pur- 
chasers. It 's well wo'th twenty dollars an acre ; I '11 sell for 
ten. It a'n't fur from market ; and thar 's noth'n' ye can't 
raise on this yer land," 

Of all his thousand acres he had only about fifteen under 
cultivation. His cornfield was not as large as it appeared; 
for, running through the centre of it, like a titanic furrow, 
were Lee's tremendous intrenchments. These few acres were 
all the old man had been able to enclose. There was not 
another fence on his form. " I had over ten thousand panels 
offence burnt up for me during the wa' ; over eighty thousand 
rails." 

" By which army? " 

" Both : fust one, and then the other. Our own troops were 
as bad as the Yankees." 

Afterwards, as we rode away from the tavern, Richard H. 
Hicks o-ave me the following succinct account of the landlord : 
"He used to be a heavy coon-dog. He had fifty head o' 
darkeys. He would n't hire 'em, and dey lef '. Now he has 
nobody to wo'k de land, he 's got a light pocket, and so he 's a 
mind to sell." 

Riding west from the Court-House, and striking across the 
fields on the right, we passed McCool's house, in a pleasant 
shady place, and reached the scene where the eight days' fight- 
ing culminated. Of the woods, thinned and despoiled by the 
storm of iron and lead, only a ghostly grove of dead trunks 
and dreary dry limbs remained. Keeping around the western 
edge of these, we came to a strange medley of intrenchments, 
which it would have required an engineer to unravel and 



140 THE FIELD OF SPOTTSYLVANIA. 

understand. Here Grant's works had been pushed up against 
Lee's, swallowing them as one wave swallows another. No- 
where else have I seen evidences of such close and desperate 
fighting. For eight days Grant had been thundering at the 
gates of the Confederacy ; slowly, with fearful loss, he had been 
pressing back the enemy and breaking through the obstruc- 
tions ; until here at last he concentrated all his strength. Each 
army fought as if the gods had decreed that the issue of the 
war depended upon that struggle. And so indeed they had : 
the way to Richmond by this route, so long attempted in vain, 
was here opened. The grand result proclaimed that the eight 
days' battles were victories ; that the enemy, for the first time 
on his own chosen ground, had met with ominous defeat. In- 
conceivable was the slaughter. Here two red rivers met and 
spilled themselves into the ground. Swift currents from the 
great West, tributaries from the Atlantic States and from the 
Lake States, priceless rills, precious drops, from almost every 
community and family in the Union, swelled the northern 
stream which burst its living banks and perished here. Every 
state, every community, every family mourned. 

But behind this curtain of woe was the chiselled awful form, 
the terrible front and sublime eyes, of the statue of Fate, the na- 
tion's unalterable Will. Contemplating that, we M'ere silenced, 
if not consoled. Every breast — that of the father going to 
search for the body of his dead son, that of the mother reading 
the brief despatch that pierced her as the bullet pierced her 
dear boy, that of the pale wife hastening to the cot-side of her 
dying husband, nay, the bleeding breasts of the wounded and 
dying, while yet they felt a throb of life — thrilled responsive 
to Grant's simple, significant announcement — 

" I propose to fight it out on this line, if it takes all summer." 

It took all summer, indeed, and all winter too ; but the re- 
sult had been decided at Spottsylvania. 

The Rebel armies had invaded the North and been driven 
ingloriously back. Many times we had started for Rich- 
mond and been repulsed. But at lengtli we were not repulsed; 
the overwhelming Avave poured over the embankments. 



" CHINCAPINNIN'." 141 

Such thoughts — or rather deep emotions, of which such 
thoughts are but the feeble expression — possess the serious 
tourist, who stands upon that field furrowed and ridged with 
earthworks and with graves, — beside that grove of shattered 
and shrivelled trees. A conscious solemnity seems brooding in 
the air. If the intrenchments could speak, what a history 
could they disclose ! But those sphinx-like lips of the earth 
are rigid and still. Even the wdnds seem to hush their 
whispers about that scene of desolation. All is silence ; and 
the heart of the visitor is constrained to silence also. 

Upon a hacked and barkless trunk at the angle of the 
woods, in the midst of the graves, was nailed aloft a board 
bearing these lines : 

" On Fame's, eternal camping-ground 
Their silent tents are spread, 
And glory guards with solemn round 
The bivouac of the dead." 

A thick undergrowth had sprung up in the woods. I 
noticed, stooping among the bushes along'by the breastworks, 
an old Avoman and two young girls. 

" Dey 're chincapinnin'," said Richard. 

But I observed that they gathered the nuts, not from the 
bushes, but from the ground. Curiosity impelled me to follow 
them. The woman had a haversack slung at her side ; one of 
the girls carried an open pail. They passed along the intrench- 
ments, searching intently, and occasionally picking something 
out of the dirt. Pressing into the bushes, I accosted them. 
They scarcely deigned to look at me, but continued their 
strano-e occupation. I questioned them about the battle ; but 
their answers were as vague and stupid as if they then heard 
of it for the first time. Meanwhile I obtained a glance at the 
open mouth of the heavily freighted haversack and the half- 
filled pail, and saw not chincapins, but several quarts of old 
bullets. 

Wandering along by the intrenchments, I observed the half- 
rotted fragments of a book on the ground. They were leaves 
from a German pocket Testament, which doubtless some soldier 



142 THE FIELD OF SPOTTSYLVANIA. 

had carried into the fight. I picketl them vip, and glanced my 
eye over the mildewed pages. By whom were they last 
perused? What poor immigrant's heart, fighting here the 
battles of his adopted country, had drawn consolation from 
those words of life, which lose not their vitality in any lan- 
guage ? What was the fate of that soldier ? Was he now telling 
the story of his campaigns to his bearded comrades, wife and 
children ; or was that tongue forever silent in the dust of the 
graves that surrounded me ? While I pondered, these words 
caught my eye : — 

" Die du mir gegeben hast, die habe ich bewahret, und ist 
keiner von ihnen verloren." — " Those that thou gavest me I 
have kept, and none of them is lost." 

I looked round upon the graves ; I thought of the patriot 
hosts that had fallen on these fearful battle-fields, — of the 
households bereft, of the husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons, 
who went down to the Wilderness and were never heard of 
more ; and peace and solace, sweet as the winds of Paradise, 
came to me in these words, as I repeated them, — 

" None of them is lost, none of them is lost ! " 



DESOLATE SCENERY. 143 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

"OX TO KICHMOND." ' 

At mid-day, on the fifteenth of September, I took the train 
at Fredericksburg for Richmond, expecting to make in three 
hours the journey which our armies were more than as many 
years in accomphshing. 

" On to Richmond ! On to Richmond ! " clattered the cars ; 
while my mind recalled the horrors and anxieties of those 
years, so strangely in contrast with the swnftness and safety 
of our present speed. Where now were the opposing Rebel 
hosts ? Where the long lines of bristling musketry, the swarms 
of cavalry, and the terrible artillery ? Where the great Slave 
Empire, the defiant Confederacy itself? 

" The earth hath bubbles as the water has, 
And these were of them." 

We passed amid the same desolate scenes which I had every- 
where observed since I set foot upon the soil of Virginia, — old 
fields and undergrowths, with signs of human life so feeble 
and so few, that one began to wonder wdiere the country 
population of the Old Dominion was to be found. All the 
region between Fredericksburg and Richmond seems not only 
almost uninhabited now, but always to have been so, — at 
least to the eye familiar with New-England farms and vil- 
lages. But one must forget the thriving and energetic North 
when he enters a country stamped with the dark seal of 
slaveiy. Large and fertile Virginia, with eight times the 
area of Massachusetts, scarcely equals in population that barren 
little State. The result is, that, where Southern State pride 
sees prosperous settlements, the travelling Yankee discovers 
little more than uncultivated wastes. 



lU "ON TO RICHMOND." 

Ashton, sixteen miles from Richmond, was the first really 
civilized-looking place we passed. Farther on I looked for 
the suburbs of the capital. But Rielimond has no suburbs. 
The pleasant villages and market-gardens that spread smil- 
ino-lv for miles around our large Northern towns, are alto- 
gether wanting here. Suddenly the melancholy waste of the 
country disappears, and you enter the outskirts of the city. 

And is this indeed Richmond into which the train glides so 
smoothly along its polished rails? Is this the fort-encircled 
capital whose gates refused so long to open to our loudly knock- 
ino- armies ? — and have we entered with so little ado ? Is the 
" Rome of the Confederacy " sitting proudly on her seven 
hills, aware that here are detestable Yankees within her walls ? 
Will she cast us into Libby ? or starve us on Belle Island ? 
or forward us to "NVirtz at Andersonville ? — for such we know 
was the fate of Northern men who did get into Richmond 
during the past four years ! You think of what they suffered, 
as you walk unmolested the pavements of the conquered capi- 
tal ; and something swells within you, which is not exultation, 
nor rage, nor grief, but a strange mingling of all these. 

" Time the Avenger ! unto thee I lift 
My hands and eyes and heart ! " 

for what a change has been Avrought since those days of 
horror and crime ! Now no Rebel guard is at hand to march 
you quickly and silently through the streets ; but friendly 
faces throng to welcome you, to offer you seats in carriages, 
and to invite you to the hospitalities of hotels. And these 
people, meeting or passing you, or seated before their doors 
in the warm September afternoon, are no longer enemies, 
but tamed complacent citizens of the United States like 
yourself. 

I was surprised to find that the storm of war had left Ricli- 
mond so beautiful a city ; although she appeared to be mourn- 
ing for her sins at the time in dust and ashes, — dust which 
every wind whirled up from the imwatered streets, and the 
ashes of the Burnt District. 



RICHMOND. 145 

Here are no such palatial residences as dazzle the eye in 
New York, Chicago, and other Northern cities ; hut in their 
place you see handsome rows of houses, mostly of brick, shaded 
by trees, and with a certain air of comfort and elegance about 
them which is very inviting. The streets are sufficiently spa- 
cious, and regularly laid out, many of them being thrown. up 
into long, sweeping lines of beauty by the hills on which they 
are built. The hills indeed are the charm of Richmond, over- 
looking the falls of the James, on the left bank of which it 
stands ; giving you shining glimpses of the winding river up 
and down, — commanding views of the verdant valley and 
of the hilly country around, — and here, at the end of some 
pleasant street, falling off abruptly into the wild slopes of 
some romantic ravine. 

In size, Richmond strikes one as very insignificant, after all 
the noise it has made in the world. Although the largest city 
of Virginia, and ranking among Southern cities of the second 
magnitude, either of our great Northern towns could swallow it, 
as one pickerel swallows a lesser, and scarcely feel the morsel 
in its belly. In 1860 it had a population of not quite thirty- 
eifht thousand, — less than that of Troy or New Haven, and 
but a little larger than that of Lowell. 

I had already secured a not very satisfactory room at a 
crowded hotel, when, going out for an afternoon ramble, I 
came by chance to Capitol Square. Although a small park, 
containing only about eight acres, I found in its shady walks 
and by its twinkling fountains a delightful retirement after 
the heat and dust of the streets. It is situated on the side 
of a hill sloping down to the burnt district which lies be- 
tween it and the river. On the brow of the slope, at an im- 
posing elevation, its pillared front looking towards the west- 
ern sun, stands the State Capitol, which was also the ca25itoI 
of the Confederacy. Near by is Crawford's equestrian statue 
of Washington, which first astonishes the beholder by its vast 
proportions, and does not soon cease to be a wonder to his 
eyes. 

Coming out of the Park, at the comer nearest the monu- 

10 



146 "ON TO RICHMOND." 

ment, I noticed, on the street-corner opposite, a hotel, whose 
range of front rooms overlooking the square, made me think 
ruefully of the lodgings I had engaged elsewhere. To ex- 
change a view of back yards and kitchen-roofs from an upper 
story for a sight from those commanding windows, entered my 
brain as an exciting possibility. I went in. The clerk had 
two or three back rooms to show, but no front room, until he 
saw that nothing else would suffice, when he obUgingly sent 
me to the very room I Avished. Throwing open the shutters, 
I looked out upon the Park, the Capitol, the colossal Wash- 
ington soaring above the trees, and the far-otf shining James. 
I caught glimpses, through the foliage, of the spray of one of 
the fountains, and could hear its ceaseless murmur mingle 
with the noise of the streets. 

I took possession at once, sent for my luggage, slept that 
nio-ht in my new lodgings, and was awakened at dawn the 
next morning by a sound as of a dish of beans dashed into 
a ringing brass kettle. This was repeated at irregular inter- 
vals, and with increasing frequency, as the day advanced, 
breaking in upon the plashy monotone of the fountain, and the 
rising hum of the city, with its resounding rattle. Stung with 
curiosity, I arose and looked from my open Avindow. Few 
white citizens were astir, but I saw a thin, ceaseless stream 
of negroes, who " would not work," going cheerfully to their 
daily tasks. The most of them took their way towards the 
burnt district ; some crossed Capitol Square to shorten their 
route; and the sounds I had heard were occasioned by the 
slamming of the iron gates of the Park. 



WHY THE REBELS BURNED THE CITY. 147 



CHAPTER XIX. 

THE BURNT DISTRICT. 

Again that morning I visited the burnt district, of which I 
had taken but a cursory view the evening before. 

All up and down, as far as the eye could reach, the business 
portion of the city bordering on the river lay in ruins. Beds 
of cinders, cellars half filled with bricks and rubbish, broken 
and blackened walls, impassable streets deluged with debris^ 
here a granite front still standing, and there the iron fragments 
of crushed machinery, — such was the scene which extended 
over thirty entire squares and parts of other squares. 

I was reminded of Chambersburg ; but here was ruin on a 
more tremendous scale. Instead of small one- and two-story 
buildings, like those of the modest Pennsylvania town, tall blocks, 
great factories, flour -mills, rolling-mills, foundries, machine- 
shops, warehouses, banks, railroad, freight, and engine houses, 
two railroad bridges, and one other bridge spanning on high 
piers the broad river, were destroyed by the desperate Rebel 
leaders on the morning of the evacuation. 

" They meant to burn us all out of our homes," said a citizen 
whom I met on the butment of the Petersburg railroad bridge. 
" It was the wickedest thing that ever was done in this world ! 
You are a stranger ; you don't know ; but the people of Rich- 
mond know, if they will only speak their minds." 

" But," said I, " what was their object in burning their own 
city, the city of their friends ? " 

" The devil only knows, for he set 'em on to do it ! It was 
spite, I reckon. If they could n't hold the city, they deter- 
mined nobody else should. They kept us here four years 
under the worst tyranny under the sun ; then when they 
found they could n't keep us any longer, they just meant to 



148 THE BURNT DISTRICT. 

burn, us up. That 's the principle they went on from the be- 
ginnincr." 

I had ah-eady conversed with other citizens on the subject 
of the fire, some of whom maintained that it was never tlie 
desio-n of the Confederate leaders to burn anything but the 
railroad bridges and public stores. But this man laughed at 
the idea. 

" That 's what they pretend ; but I know better. What 
was the water stopped from the reservoirs for ? So that we 
should have none to put out the fire with ! " 

" But they say the water was shut off in order to make 
repairs." 

" It 's all a lie ! I tell ye, stranger, it was the intention to 
burn Richmond, and it 's a miracle that any part of it was saved. 
As luck would have it, there was no wind to spread the fire ; 
then the Federals came in, let on the water, and went to work 
with the engines, and put it out." 

" Why did n't the citizens do that ? " 

" I don't know. Everybody was paralyzed. It was a per- 
fect panic. The Yankees coming ! the city burning ! our army 
on a retreat ! — you 've no idea of what it was. Nobody 
seemed to know what to do. God save us from another such 
time ! It was bad enough Sunday. If the world had been 
coming to an end, there could n't have been more fright and 
confusion. I was watchman on this railroad bridge, — when 
there was a bridge here. I was off duty at midnight, and I 
went home and went to bed. But along towards morning my 
daughter woke me. ' Father,' says she, 'the city 's afire ! ' I 
knew right away what Avas the matter. The night was all lit 
up, and I could hear the roar of something besides the river. 
I run out and started for the bridge, but I 'd got quite near 
enough, when the ammunition in the tobacco-warehouses begun 
to go off. Crack ! — crack ! — crack, crack, crack ! One 
piece of shell whirred past my head like a pa'tridge. I did n't 
want to hear another. I put home and went to getting my 
truck together, such as I could tote, ready to leave if my house 
went." 



CONFLICTING OPINIONS. 149 

Subsequently I conversed with citizens of every grade upon 
this exciting topic, and found opinions regarding it as various 
as the pohtical views of tlieir authors. Those aristocrats who 
went in for the war but kept out of the fight, and who favored 
the Davis government because it favored them, had no word 
of censure for the incendiaries. 

" The burning of the city was purely accidental," one 
blandly informed me. 

" No considerable portion of it would have been destroyed 
if it had n't been for private marauding parties," said another. 
" The city was full of such desperate characters. They set 
fires for the purpose of plundering. It was they, and nobody 
else, who shut off the water from the reservoirs." 

The laboring class, on the other hand, generally denounced 
the Confederate leaders as the sole authors of, the calamity. It 
w^as true that desperadoes aided in the work, but it was after 
the fugitive government had set them the example. 

Here is the opinion of a Confederate officer, Colonel D , 

whom I saw daily at the table of the hotel, and with whom I 
had many interesting conversations. 

" It is not fair to lay the whole blame on the Confederate 
government, although. Heaven knows, it was bad enough to 
do anything ! The plan of burning the city had been discussed 
beforehand : Lee and the more humane of his officers opposed 
it ; Early and others favored it ; and Breckinridge took the 
responsibility of putting it into execution." 

Amid all these conflicting opinions there was one thing cer- 
tain — the fact of the fire ; although, had it not been written 
out there before our eyes in black characters and lines of deso- 
lation, I should have' expected to hear some unblushing apolo- 
gist of the Davis despotism deny even that. 

And, whoever may have been personally responsible for the 
crime, there is also a truth concerning it which I hold to be 
undeniable. Like the assassination of Lincoln, like the sys- 
tematic murder of Union prisoners at Andersonville and else- 
where, — like these and countless other barbarous acts which 
have branded the Rebel cause with infamy, — this too was in- 



150 THE BURNT DISTRICT. 

spired by the spirit of slavery, and performed in the interest 
of slavery. That spirit, destructive of liberty and law, and 
self-destructive at last, was the father of the rebellion and of 
all the worst crimes of its adherents. As I walked among. the 
ruins, pondering these thoughts, I must own that my heart 
swelled with pride when I remembered how the fire was ex- 
tino-uished. It was by no mere chance that the panic-stricken 
inhabitants were found powerless to save their own city. That 
task was reserved for the Union army, that a great truth might 
be symbolized. The war, on the ])art of the North, was waged 
neither for ambition nor revenge ; its design was not destruc- 
tive, but conservative. Through all our cloudy mistakes and 
misdeeds shone the spirit of Liberty ; and the work she gave 
us to do was to quench the national flames which anarchy had 
kindled, and to save a rebellious people from the consequences 
of their own folly. 

Richmond had already one terrible reminiscence of a fire. 
On the night of the 2Gth of December, 1811, its theatre was 
burned, with an appalling catastrophe : upward of seventy 
spectators, including tlie Governor of the State, perishing in the 
flames. The fire of the 3d of April, 1865, will be as long 
remembered. 

The work of rebuilding the burnt district had commenced, 
and was progressing in places quite vigorously. Here I had 
the satisfaction of seeing the negroes, who " would not work," 
actually at their tasks. Here, as everywhere else in Rich- 
mond, and indeed in every })art of Virginia I visited, colored 
laborers were largely in the majority. They drove the teams, 
made the mortar, carried the hods, excavated the old cellars or 
duo- new ones, and, sittinir down amid the ruins, broke the 
mortar from the old bricks and put them up in neat piles ready 
for use. There were also colored masons and carpenters em- 
ployed on the new buildings. I could not see but that these 
people worked just as industriovisly as the white laborers. And 
vet, with this" scene before our very eyes, I was once more in- 
formed by a cynical citizen that the negro, now that he was 
free, would rob, steal, or starve, before he would work. 



CHAT WITH A COLORED LABORER. 151 

' I conversed with one of the laborers going home to his 
dinner. He was a stalwart young black, twenty-one years old, 
married, and the father of two children. He was earning a 
dollar and a half a day. 

" Can you manage to live on that, and support your 

family ? " 

" it 's right hard, these times, — everything costs so high. 
1 have td pay fifteen dollars a month rent, and only two Httle 
rooms. But my wife takes in washing and goes out to work ; 
and so we get along." 

" But," said I, " were not your people better off in 
slavery ? " 

" Oh no, sir ! " he replied, with a bright smile. " We 're 
a heap better off now. We have n't got our rights yet, but I 
expect we 're go'n' to have 'em soon." 

" What rights ? " 

" I don't know, sir. But I reckon government will do some- 
thing for us. My master has had me ever since I was seven 
years old, and never give me nothing. I worked for him 
twelve years, and I think something is due me." 

He was waiting to see what the government would do for 
his people. He rather expected the lands of their Rebel masters 
would be given them, insisting that they ought to have some 
reward for all their years of unrequited toil. Of course I 
endeavored to dissuade him from cherishing any such hope. 

" What you ask for may be nothing but justice ; but we 
must not expect justice even in this world. We must be thank- 
ful for what we can get. You have your freedom, and you 
ousht to consider yourself luckv." 

His features shone with satisfaction as he replied, — 

" That ought to be enough, if w-e don't get no mo'e. We 
're men now, but when our masters had us we was only change 
in their pockets." 

Unlike what I saw in Chambersburg, the new blocks spring- 
ing up in the burnt district did not promise to be an improve- 
ment on the old ones. Everywhere were visible the results 



152 THE BURNT DISTRICT. 

of want of capital and of the huny of rebuilding. The thin- 
ness of the walls was alarming ; and I was not surprised to 
learn that some of them had recently been blown down on a 
wundj night. Heaven save our country, thought I, from such 
hasty and imperfect reconstruction ! 



INTERIOR OF LIBBY PRISON. 153 



CHAPTER XX. 

. LIBBY, CASTLE THUNDER, AND BELLE ISLE. 

Strolling along a street near the river, below the burnt 
district, I looked up from the dirty pavements, and from the 
little ink-colored stream creeping along the gutter, (for Rich- 
mond abounds in these villanous rills,) and saw before me a 
sign nailed to the corner of a large, gloomy brick building, 
and bearing in great black letters the inscription, — 
LIBBY PRISON. 

Passing the sentinel at the door, I entered. The ground- 
floor was partitioned off into offices and store-rooms, and pre- 
sented feAV objects of interest. A large cellar-room below, 
paved with cobble-stones, was used as" a cook-house by our 
soldiers then occupying the building. Adjoining this, but 
separated from it by a wall, was the cellar which is said to 
have been mined for the purpose of blowing up Libby with 
its inmates, in case the city had at one time been taken. 

Ascending a flight of stairs from the ground-floor, I found 
myself in a single, large, oblong, whitewashed, barren room. 
Two rows of stout wooden posts supported the ceiling. The 
windows were iron-grated, those of the front looking out upon 
the street, and those of the rear commanding a view of the 
canal close by, the river just beyond it, and the opposite shore. 

There was an immense garret above, likewise embracmg 
the entire area of the floor. These were the prison-rooms of 
the infamous Libby. I found them occupied by a regiment 
of colored troops, some sitting in Turkish fashion on the floor, 
(for there was not a stool or bench,) some resting their backs 
against the posts or whitewashed walls, and others lying at 
length on the hard planks, with their heads pillowed on their 
knapsacks. 



154 LIBBY, CASTLE THUNDER, AND BELLE ISLE. 

But the comfortable colored regiment faded from sio-ht as 
I ascended and descended the stairs, and walked from end to 
end of the dreary chambers. A far different picture i-ose 
before me, — the diseased and hag-o-ard men crowded to- 
gether there, dragging out their weary days, deeming them- 
selves oftentimes forgotten by their country and their friends, 
— men who mounted those dungeon-stairs, not as I mounted 
them, but to enter a den of misery, starvation, and death. 

On the opposite side of the same street, a little farther up, 
was Castle Thunder, — a very commonplace brick block, con- 
sidering its formidable name. It was still used as a prison ; 
but it had passed into the hands of the United States military 
authorities. At the iron-barred windows of the lower story, 
and behind the wooden -barred windows above, could be 
seen the flxces of soldiers and citizens imprisoned for various 
offences. 

Belle Island I had already seen from the heights of Rich- 
mond, — a pleasant hill rising out of the river above the town, 
near the farther shore. The river itself is very beautiful there, 
with its many green islets, its tumbling rapids sweeping down 
among rocks and foaming over ledges, and its side-dams thrown 
out like arms to draw the waters into their tranquil embrace. 
My eye, ranging over this scene, rested on that fair hill ; and 
I thought that, surely, no pleasanter or more healthful spot 
could have been selected for an encampment of prisoners. 
But it is unsafe to trust the enchantment of distance ; and 
after seeing Libby and Castle Thunder, I set out to visit Belle 
Island. 

I crossed over to Manchester by a bridge which had been 
constructed since the fire. As both the Richmond and Dan- 
ville, and the Richmond and Petersburg railroad bridges were 
destroyed, an extraordinary amount of business and travel 
was thrown upon this bridge. It was shaken with omnibuses 
and freight-wagons, and enveloped in clouds of dust. Loads 
of cotton and tobacco, the former in bales, the latter in hoo-s- 
heads, were coming into the city, and throngs of pedestrians 
were passing to and fro. Among these I noticed a number 



HARD-HEARTED TLANTER. 155 

ofnecrrocs with little bundles on their backs. One of them, 
a very old man, was leaning against the railing to rest. 

" Well, uncle, how are you getting along? " 

" Tolerable, mahster ; only tolerable." And he lifted his 
tattered cap from his white old head with a grace of i)oliteness 
which a courtier mijiht have envied. 

" Where are you going? " 

" I 's go'n' to Richmond, mahster." 

" What do you expect to do in Richmond ? " 

*' I don't know risht well. I thought I could n't be no wus 
off than whar I was ; and I had n't no place to go." 

" How so, uncle ? " 

" You see, mahster, thar a'n't no chance fo' people o' my 
color in the country I come from." 

"Where is that?" 

*' Dinwiddle County." 

" You have walked all the way from Dinwiddle County ? " 

" Yes, mahster ; I 'se walked over fo'ty mile. But I don't 
mind that." 

" You 're very old, uncle." 

" Yes, I 've a right good age, mahster. It 's hard fo' a man 
o' my years to be turned out of his home. I don't know 
what I shall do ; but I reckon the Lord will take keer of me." 

The tone of patience and cheerfulness in which he spoke 
was very touching. I leaned on the bridge beside him, and 
drew out from him by degrees his story. His late master 
refused to give wages to the freedmen on his lands, and the 
result was that all the able-bodied men and women left him. 
Enraged at this, he had sworn that the rest should go too, and 
had accordingly driven off the aged and the sick, this old man 
among them. 

" He said he 'd no use fo' old wore-out niggers. I knowed 
I was old and wore-out, but I growed so in his service. I 
served him and his father befo'e high on to sixty year ; and he 
never give me a dollar. He 's had my life, and now I 'm old 
and wore-out I must leave. It 's right hard, mahster ! " 
" Not all the planters in your county are like him, I hope ? " 



156 LIBBY, CASTLE THUNDER, AND BELLE ISLE. ' 

" Some of 'em is very good to their people, I believe. But 
none of 'em is will'n' to pay wages a man can live by. Them 
that pays at all, offers only five dollars a month, and we must 
pay fo' ou' own clothes and doctor's bills, and suppo't ou' fam- 
ilies.' 

" It seems you were better off when in slavery," I suggested. 

" I don't say that, mahster. I 'd sooner be as I is to-day." 
And cheerfully shouldering his bundle, the old African 
tramped on towards Richmond. What was to become of him 
there ? 

I kept on to Manchester, passed the gi'eat humming mills by 
the river-side, and turning to the right, up the Danville rail- 
road, reached Belle Island bridge after a brisk fifteen minutes' 
walk. Crossing over, I entered the yard of a nail-factory, 
where some men were breaking up heavy old iron, cannons, 
mortars, and car-wheels, by means of a four-hundred pound 
shot dropped from a derrick forty feet high. Beyond the fac- 
tory rose the pleasant hill I had viewed from the city. I 
climbed its southern side, and found myself in the midst of a 
scene not less fair than I had anticipated. Behind me was a 
cornfield, covering the summit ; below rushed the river among 
its green and rocky islands ; while Richmond rose beyond, pict- 
uresquely beautiful on its hills, and rosy in the flush of sunset. 

But where had been the prisoners' camp ? I saw no trace 
of it on that slope. Alas, that slope was never trodden by their 
feet, and its air they never breathed. At the foot of it is a 
flat, spreading out into the stream, and almost level with it at 
high water. Already the night-fog was beginning to creep 
over it. This flat, which Avas described to me as a marsh in 
the rainy season, and covered with snow and slush and ice in 
winter, was the " Belle Isle " of our prisoners. Yet they 
were not allowed the range even of that. A trench and em- 
bankment enclosing an oblong space of less than six acres 
formed the dead-line which it was fatal to pass. Within this 
as many as twelve thousand men were at times crowded, Avith 
no shelter but a few tattered tents. 

As I was examining the spot, a throng of begrimed laborers 



EXPRESSIONS OF THE COMMON PEOPLE. 157 

crossed the flat, carrying oars, and embarking in boats on the 
low shore looking towards the city. They were workmen 
from the nail-factory returning to their homes. One of them, 
passing alone after his companions, stopped to talk with me at 
the dead-line, and afterwards offered me a place in his boat. 
It was a leaky little skiff: I perched myself upon a seat in the 
bow ; and he, standing in the stern, propelled it across with a 
pole. 

" Where were the dead burled? " I asked. 
" The dead Yankees ? They buried a good many thar in 
the sand-bar. But they might about as well have flung 'em 
into the river. A freshet washed out a hundred and twenty 
bodies at one time." 

" Did you see the prisoners when they were here ? " 
" I was n't on the Island. But from Richmond anybody 
could see their tents hyer, and see them walking around. I 
was away most of the time." 
" In the army ? " 

" Yes, sir ; I was in the army. I enlisted fo' three months, 
and they kept me in fou' years," he said, as men speak of deep 
and unforgiven wrongs. " The wa' was the crudest thing, and 
the wust thing fo' the South that could have been. What do 
you think they '11 do with Jeff Davis?" 

" I don't know," I replied ; " what do you think? " 
" I know what I 'd like to do with him : I 'd hang him as 
quick as I would a mad dog ! Him and about fo'ty others : 
old Buchanan along with 'em." 

" Why, what has Buchanan done ? " 

" He was in cohoot with 'em, and as bad as the baddest. 
If we had had an honest President in his place, thar never 'd 
have been wa'." 

From the day I entered Virginia it was a matter of con- 
tinual astonishment to me to hear the common people express 
views similar to those, and denounce the Davis despotism. 
They were all the more bitter agamst it because it had deceived 
them with hes and false promises so long. Throughout the 
loyal North, the feeling against the secession leaders was natu- 



158 LIBBY, CASTLE THUNDER, AND BELLE ISLE. 

rally strong ; but it was mild as candle-light compared with the 
fierce furnace-heat of hatred Avhich I found kindled in many a 
Southern breast. 

The passage of the river was delightful, in the fading sunset 
light. On a bluft' opposite Belle Island Avas Hollywood, the 
fashionable cemetery of Richmond, green-wooded, and beauti- 
ful at that hour in its cool and tranquil tints. As we glided 
down the river, and I took my last view of the Island, I 
thought how often our sick and weary soldiers there must have 
cast longing eyes across at that lovely hill, and wished them- 
selves quietly laid away in its still shades. Nor could I help 
thinking of the good people of Richmond, the Christian citizens 
of Richmond, taking their pleasant Avalks and drives to that 
verdant height, and looking down on the camp of prisoners 
dying from exposure and starvation under their very eyes. 
How did these good people, these Christian citizens, feel about 
it, I wondeu? 

Avoiding the currents sweeping towards the Falls, my man 
pushed into the smooth waters of a dam that fed a race, and 
landed me close under the walls of his own house. 

" This yer is Browai's Island," he told me. " You 've heerd 
of the laboratoiy, whar they made ammunition fo' the army?" 
He showed me the deserted buildings, and described an explo- 
sion which took place there, blowing up the works, and killing, 
scalding, and maiming many of the operatives. 

Passing over a bridge to the main land, and crossing the canal 
which winds along the river-bank, I was hastening towards the 
city, when I met, emerging from the sombre ruins of the burnt 
district, a man who resembled more a wild creature than a 
human being. His hands, arms, and face were blackened with 
cinders, his clothes hung upon him in tatters, and the expres- 
sion of his countenance was fierce and hacrcard. He looked so 
much like a brigand that I was not a little startled when, with 
a sweeping gesture of his long lean arm and claw-like fingers, 
he clutched my shoulder. 

" Come back with me," said he, " and I '11 tell ye all about 
it J I '11 tell ye all about it, stranger." 



"BLOWED ALL TO PIECES." 159 

" About wliat ? " 

" The explosion, — the explosion of the laboratory thar ! " 

Dragging me towards Brown's Island with one hand, and 
gesticulating violently with the other, he proceeded to jabber 
incoherently about that dire event. 

" Wait, wait," said he, " till I tell you ! " — like the Ancient 
Mariner with skinny hand holding his unwilling auditor. 
" My daughter was work'n' thar at the time ; and she was 
blowed all to pieces ! all to pieces ! My God, my God, it Avas 
horrible ! Come to my house, and you shall see her ; if you 
don't believe me, you shall see her ! Blowed all to pieces, all 
to pieces, my God ! " 

His house was close by, and the daughter, who was " blowed 
all to pieces," was to be seen standing miraculously at the door, 
in a remarkable state of preservation, considering the circum- 
stances. She seemed to be looking anxiously at the old man 
and the strano-er he was brino-ing home with him. She came 
to the wicket to meet us ; and then I saw that her hands and 
face were covered with cruel scars. 

" Look ! " said he, clutching her with one hand, while he 
still held me with the other. " All to pieces, as I told you ! " 

" Don't, don't, pa ! " said the girl, coaxingly. " You must 
n't mind him," she whispered to me. " He is a little out of 
his head. Oh, pa ! don't act so I " 

" He has been telling me how you were blown up in the 
laboratory. You must have suffered fearfully from those 
wounds ! " 

" Oh, yes ; there was five weeks nobody thought I would 
live. But I did n't mind it," she added with a smile, " for it 
was in a o-ood cause." 

" A good cause ! " almost shrieked the old man ; and he 
burst forth with a stream of execrations against the Confed- 
erate government which made my blood chill. 

But the daughter smilingly repeated, " It was a good cause, 
and I don't regret it. You must n't mind what he says." 

I helped her get him inside the wicket, and made my escape, 
■wondering, as I left them, which was the more insane of the 
two. 



160 LIBBY, CASTLE THUNDER, AND BELLE ISLE. 

But she was not insane ; she was a woman. A man may 
be reasoned and beaten out of a false opinion, but a Avoman 
never. She wall not yield to logic, not even to the logic of 
events. Thus it happens that, Avhile the male secessionists at 
the South have frankly given up their cause, the female seces- 
sionists still cling to it with provoking tenacity. To appeal to 
their intelligence is idle ; but they are vulnerable on the side 
of the sentiments ; and many a one has been authentically con- 
verted from the heresy of state rights by some handsome 
Federal officer, who judiciously mingled love with loyalty in 
his speech, and pleaded for the union of hands as well as the 
union of States. 



CO 

H 

s 

a 

H 



>- 




X 



"DESTITUTE EATION" TICKETS. 161 



CHAPTER XXI. 

FEEDING THE DESTITUTE. 

As I was passing Castle Thunder, I observed, besieging 
the doors of the United States Commissary, on the opposite 
side of the street, a hungry-looking, haggard croAvd, — sickly- 
faced women, jaundiced old men, and children in rags ; with 
here and there a seedy gentleman who had seen better days, 
or a stately female in faded apparel, which, like her refined 
manners, betrayed the aristocratic lady whom the war had 
reduced to want. 

These were the destitute of the city, thronging to receive 
alms from the government. The regular rations, issued at 
a counter to which each was admitted in his or her turn, 
consisted of salt-fish and hard-tack ; but I noticed that to 
some tea and sugar were dealt out. All were provided with 
tickets previously issued to them by the Relief Commission. 
One tall, sallow woman requested me to read her ticket, and 
tell her if it was a " No. 2." 

"They telled me it was, whar I got it, but I like to be 
shore.'' 

I assured her that it was truly a " No. 2," and asked why 
it was preferable to another. 

" This is the kind they ishy to sick folks ; it allows tea and 
sugar," she replied, wrapping it around her skinny finger. 

Colored people were not permitted to draw " destitute ra- 
tions" for themselves at the same place wath the whites. 
There were a good many colored servants in the crowd, 
however, drawing for their mistresses, who remained at 
home, too ill or £oo proud to come in person and present then: 

tickets. 

11 



162 FEEDING THE DESTITUTE. 

At the place where " destitute rations " were issued to the 
blacks, business appeared very dull. I inquired the reason 
of it, and learned this astonishing fact. 

The colored population crowded into Richmond at that time 
equalled the white population ; being estimated by some as 
high as twenty-five thousand. Of the whites, over two 
THOUSAND were at that time receiving support from the gov- 
ernment. The number of blacks receiving such support was 
less than two hundred. 

How is this discrepancy to be accounted for ? 

Of the freedmen's willingness to work under right condi- 
tions there can be no question. It is true, they do not show 
a disposition to continue to serve their former masters for 
nothing, or at starvation prices. And many of them had a 
notion that lands were to be given them ; for lands had been 
promised them. At the same time, Avliere they have a show of 
a chance for themselves, they generally go to work, and mani- 
fest a commendable pride in supporting themselves and their 
families. Until he does that, the negro does not consider that 
he is fully free. He has no prejudice against labor, as so many 
of the whites have. We must give slavery the credit of 
having done thus much for him : it has bred him up to habits 
of temperance and industry. Notwithstanding the example 
of the superior race, which he naturally emulates, he has not 
yet taken to drink ; and his industry, instead of being checked, 
has received an impulse by emancipation. Now that he has 
inducements to exert himself, he proceeds to his task with an 
alacrity which he never showed when driven to it by the 
whip. 

Another thing must be taken into account. His feeling 
for those who have liberated him is that of unbounded grati- 
tude. He is ashamed to ask alms of the government which 
has already done so much for him. No case was known in 
Richmond of his obtaining destitute rations under false pre- 
tences ; but in many instances, as I learned, he had preferred 
to suffer want rather than apply for aid. 

The reverse of all this may be said of a large class of whites. 



THEIR RAPACITY. 163 

Many, despising labor, -would not work if they could. Others, 
reared amid the influences of wealth, which had now been 
stripped from them, could not work if they would. Towards 
the United States Government they entertained no such feel- 
ing of gratitude as animated the freedmen. On the contrary, 
they seemed to think that they were entitled to support fi-om 
it durino; the remainder of their lives. 

" Yon ought to do something for ns, for you 've took away 
our niggers," whined a well-dressed woman one day in my 
hearing. To the force of the objection, that the South owed 
the loss of its slaves to its own folly, she appeared singularly 
insensible ; and she showed marked resentment because noth- 
ing was done for her, although obliged to confess that she 
owned the house she lived in, and another for which two col- 
ored families were paying rent. 

I was sittino; in one of the tents of the Relief Commission 
one morning, wdien a woman came to complain that a ticket 
issued to her there had drawn but fifteen rations, instead of 
twenty-one, as she had expected. 

"I did n't think it was you all's fault," she said, with an 
aj)ologetic grimace ; " but I knowed I 'd been powerfully 
cheated." 

This was the spirit manifested by very many, both of the 
rich and the poor. They felt that they had a sacred right to 
prey upon the government, and any curtailment of that pri^a- 
lege they regarded as a wrong and a fraud. So notorious was 
their rapacity, that they were satirically represented as saying 
to the government, — 

" We have done our best to break you up, and now we are 
doing our best to eat you up." 

Where such a spirit existed, it was not possible to prevent 
hundreds from obtainino; government aid who were not en- 
titled to it. It was the design of the Relief Commission to feed 
only indigent women and children. No rations were issued by 
the Commissary except to those presenting tickets ; and tickets 
were issued for the benefit only of those whose destitute condi- 
tion was attested by certificates signed by a clergyman or phy- 



164 FEEDING THE DESTITUTE. 

sician.^ To secure these certificates, however, was not diffi- 
cult, even for those who stood in no need of government 
charity. Clergymen and physicians were not all honest. 
Many of them believed with the people that the government 
was a fit object for good secessionists to prey upon. Some 
were faithful in the performance of their duty ; but if one 
physician refused to sign a false statement, it was easy to dis- 
miss him, and call in another less scrupulous. 

" I have just exposed two spurious cases of destitution," 
said an officer of the Relief Commission, one day as I en- 
tered his tent. " Mrs. A , on Fourth Street, has been 

doing a thriving business all summer, by selling the rations 

she has drawn for a fictitious family. Mrs. B has been 

getting support for herself, and two sick daughters, that turn 
out to be two great lazy sons, who take her hard-tack and salt- 
fish, and exchange them for wdiiskey, get drunk every night, 
and lie abed till noon every day." 

" "What do you do with such cases ? " 

" Cut them off: that is all we can do. This whole business 
of feeding the poor of Richmond," he added, "is a humbug. 
Richmond is a w^ealthy city still ; it is very well able to take 
care of its own ])oor, and should be taxed for the purpose." 
I found this to be the opinion of many intelligent unbiased 
observers. 

Besides the Relief Commission, and the Freedmen's Cora- 
mission, both maintained by the government, I found an 
agency of the American Union Commission established in 
Richmond. This Commission, supported by private benevo- 
lence, was organized for tlie purpose of aiding the people of 

1 Form of certificate : — 

Richmond, Va., , 1865. 

I CERTIFY, on honor, that I am well acquainted with Mrs. Jane Smith, and that she 
is the o-uiier of no real estate or personal property, or effects of any kind ; and that she 
has no male member of her family who is the owner of real estate or personal property 
or effects of any kind, upon which there can he realized sufficient money for the main- 
tenance of her family; and that she has no means of support, and is a proper object 
of charity; and that her family consists of four females and five children. 

Given under my hand, this 17th day of September, 1865. i 

Jefferson Jones, M. D. , 



WOEK OF THE UNIOK COMMISSION". 165 

the South, " in the restoration of their civil and social condi- 
tion, upon the basis of industry, education, freedom, and 
Christian morality." In Richmond, it was doing a useful 
work. To the small farmers about the city it issued ploughs, 
spades, shovels, and other much needed implements, — for 
the war had beaten pitchforks into bayonets, and cast plough- 
shares into cannon. Earlier in the season it had distributed 
many thousand papers of garden-seeds to applicants from all 
parts of the State, — a still greater benefit to the impoverished 
people, with whom it was a common saying, that " good seed 
ran out under the Confederacy." It had estabhshed a free 
school for poor whites. I also found Mr. C. the Commission's 
Richmond agent, indefatigable in assisting other associations in 
the establishment of schools for the Freedmen. 

The Union Commission performed likewise an indispensa- 
ble part in feeding the poor. Those clergymen and physicians 
who were so prompt to grant certificates to secessionists not 
entitled to them, were equally prompt to refuse them to per- 
sons known as entertaining Union sentiments. To the few 
genuine Union people of Richmond, therefore, the Commis- 
sion came, and was welcomed as an angel of mercy. But it 
did not confine its fiivors to them ; having divided the city 
into twelve districts, and appointed inspectors for each, it ex- 
tended its aid to such of the needy as the Relief Commission 
had been unable to reach. 



166 THE ui^iOK me:n^ of eichmo:n^d. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

THE UNION MEN OF RICHMOND. 

At the tent of the ynion Commission, pitched near a foim- 
tain on Ca])itol Square, I met a quiet httle man in laborer's 

clothes, whom the agent introduced to me as " Mr. H ," 

adding, " There Avei-e two votes cast against the ordinance 
of secession in this city : one of those votes was cast by Mr. 
H . He is one of the twenty-one Union men of Rich- 
mond." 

He looked to be near fifty years of age ; but he told me 
he was only thirty-two. " I 've been through such things as 
make a man look old ! " He showed me his gray hair, which 
he said was raven black, without a silver streak, before the 
war. 

" I was four times taken to the conscript camp, but never 
sent off to fight. I worked in a foundery, and my emplo^^er got 
out exemption papers for me. The Confederates, when Ihey 
wanted more men, would declare any time that all the exemp- 
tion papers then out were void, and go to picking us up in the 
street and sending us off to camp before we knew it. Some 
would buy themselves off, and a few would get off as I did, — 
because they could do work nobody else could do." 

He was a man of intuitive ideas and originality of char- 
acter. Although bred up under the influence of the peculiar 
institution, poor, and uneducated, he had early formed clear 
and strong convictions on the subject of slavery. " I was an 
Abolitionist before I ever heard the word abolitionist." He 
believed*in true religion, but not in the religion of traitors. 

" I never hesitated to tell 'em what I thouoht. ' God has 
no more to do with you all,,' says I, ' than he has with last 
year's rain. I 'd as lieves go to a gambhng-house, as to go and 



FAITHFUL "TWENTY-ONE." 167 

hear a minister pray that God would drive back the armies of 
the North. You are on your knees mocking at God, and He 
lauglis at you ! ' Events proved that what I said was true. 
After every Fast, the Rebels lost some important point. There 
was a Fast-day just before Fort Dqnelson ; another before New 
Orleans Avas taken ; another before Gettysburg and Vicks- 
burg ; another before Atlanta fell ; and another before the 
evacuation of Richmond. That was the way God answered 
their prayers." 

He corroborated the worst accounts I had heard concerning 
the state of society in Richmond during the war. 

" It seemed as though there was nothing but thieving and 
robbery going on. The worst robbers were Hood's men, set 
to guard the city. They 'd halt a man, and shoot him right 
down if he would n't stop. They 'd ask a man the time, 
and snatch his watch. They went to steal some chickens of 
a man I knew, and as he tried to prevent them, they killed 
him. At last the women got to stealing. "We had an insur- 
rection of women here, you know. I never saw such a sight. 
They looked like flocks of old buzzards, picked geese, and 
cranes ; dressed in all sorts of odd rigs ; armed with hatchets, 
knives, axes, — anything they could lay their hands on. They 
collected together on the Square, and Governor Letcher made 
'em a speech from the Monument. They hooted at him. 
Then Jeff Davis made a speech ; they hooted at him too ; 
they did n't want speeches, they said ; they wanted bread. 
Then they begun to plunder the stores. They 'd just go in 
and carry off what they pleased. I saw three women put a 
bag of potatoes, and a barrel of flour, and a firkin of butter in 
a dray ; then they ordered the darkey to drive off, with two 
women for a guard." 

Another of the faithful twenty-one Avas Mr. L , whom 

I found at a restaurant kept by him near the old market. It 
was he who carried off Col. Dahlgren's body, after it had been 
buried by the Rebels at Oak Wood. 

" I found a negro who knew the spot, and hired him to go 
with me one dark night, and dig up the body. We carried 



168 THE UKION MEN OF RICHMOND. 

it to Mr. Rowlett's house [Mr. Rowlett was another of the 
faithful], and afterwards took it through the Confederate hnes, 
in broad daylight, hid under a load of 2:)each-trees, and 
buried it in a metallic case. It lay there until after the 
evacuation, when it was dug up and sent home to Admiral 
Dahlgren's family." 

Mr. L devoted much of his time and means durino; 

the war to feeding Union prisoners, and helping Union men 
through the lines. " I was usually at work that way all 
night ; so the next day I 'd be looking sick and sleepy ; and 
that way, — with a little money to bribe the doctors, — I 
kept out of the Rebel army." In January, 1865, he was 
arrested for sending information through the lines to General 
Butler, and lay in prison until the evacuation. 

One of the most interesting evenings in my Richmond 
experience I passed at the house of Mr. W , on Twenty- 
fifth Street. A Northern man by birth and education, he had 
remained true to his nativity at a time when so many from 
the Free States living at the South had proved renegades and 
apostates. Arrested early in the war for " disloyalty," he had 
suffered six months in Salisbury Prison because he Avould 
not take the oath of allegiance to the Confederate Government. 

" I could have got my liberty any day by taking that oath. 
But I never would, and never did. As good and true men 
as ever trod the earth died there because they would not 
take it. Mr. Buck, of Kentucky, was one. Almost his 
last words were, ' Tell my wife I would be glad to go home, 
but I 'd rather die here than take an oath that will perjure 
my soul.' He was happy; he died. Dying was not the 
worst part of it, by any means ; our sufferings every day 
were worse than death." 

Liberated at last, through the intercession of his wife, Mr. 
W came home, and devoted himself to feeding and res- 
cuing Union prisoners, and to serving his country in other 
perilous ways. 

He corroborated what had been told me with regard to 
the number of Union men in Richmond. 



RICHMOKD BARBAKITIES. 169 

> 

" You will find men enough now, who claim to have been 
Union men from the first. But of those whose loyalty stood 
the test of persecution in every shape, there are just twenty- 
one, — no more, and no less. I 've watched them all through, 
and if there 's a Union man I don't know, I should like to see 
him. Those men of influence, who opposed secession in the 
beginning, and afterwards voted for it, but who pretend now 
to have been in flivor of the Union all the while, were the 
most mischievous traitors of all, for they carried the lukewarm 
with them." 

There were Union women, however, who worked and suf- 
fered as heroically for the cause as the men. " One lady was 
nine months in prison here for sending information through 
the lines to our armies. She was very ill at one time, and 
wished to see a minister. They sent her Jeff" Davis's min- 
ister. ' Miserable wretch ! ' said he, ' I suppose I must pray 
with you, but I don't see how I can ! ' " 

" When my husband was in prison," said Mrs. W , 

" we suffered greatly for the necessaries of life. We had a 
little money in the savings-bank ; and he sent us an order for 
it : ' Please pay to my little son,' and so forth. Payment 
was refused, because he had not taken the oath of allegiance, 
and the money Avas confiscated." 

Of the labors, perils, sacrifices, and anxieties which the 
Union men of Richmond underwent, in giving secret aid 
to the good cause, no adequate account has ever been pub- 
lished, nor ever will be published. " I did no other business 
at the time. I gave my whole life to it, and all my means. 
I nearly went crazy. Besides Libby and Castle Thunder, 
there were several smaller prisons in Richmond. There was 
one next door to us here. There was another on the oppo- 
site side, a little farther up the street. We had the prisoners 
under our very eyes, and could n't help doing something for 
them. We could see their haggard fiices and imploring eyes 
looking out at us from the windows, — or from behind the win- 
dows, — for it was n't safe for them to come too near. One 
day I saw one approach a little nearer than usual, — his head 



170 THE UNION MEN OF RICHMOND. 

was perhaps a foot from the window, — when the guard de- 
liberately put up his gun and blew out his brains. He was 
immediately carried away in a cart ; and as a little red stream 
trickled along the ground, a boy ran after it, shouting, ' Thar 's 
some Yankee blood ; bring a cup and ketch it ! ' The papers 
next day boasted that in an hour the dead man was under the 
sod." 

A fund was secretly collected for the benefit of the prisoners. 
One of the first contributors towards it was an illiterate poor 

man named White. He put in five dollars. Mr. W told 

him that was too much for a man in his circumstances. " No," 
said White, " I 's got two fives, and I reckon the least I can 
do is to go halves." From that small beginning the fund 
grew to the handsome sum of thirteen thousand dollars. 

White, concealing his Union sentiments from the author- 
ities, got permission to sell milk and other things to the pris- 
oners, which they paid for often with money he smuggled in 
to them. With small bribes he managed to secure the good- 
will of the guard. He played his part admirably, higgling 
with his customers, and complaining of hard times and small 
profits, while he gave them milk and money, and carried 
letters for them. One day a prisoner was observed to slip 
something into his can. To divert suspicion. White pretended 
great surprise, and, appearing to fish out a dime, held it up to 
the light as if to assure himself that it Avas real. " I 's durned 
if there a'n't one honest Yankee ! " said he, with a grin of 
satisfaction. 

Mrs. W obtained permission to send some books to the 

prisoners; very few reached them, however, — the greater 
part being appropriated by the Rebels. Donations of clothing 
and other necessaries met with a similar fate. In this state 
of things. White's ancient mule-cart and honest fiice proved 
in\"aluable. He carried a pass-book, in which exchanged pris- 
oners were credited with sums subscribed for the benefit of 
their late companions. Many of these subscriptions were 
purely fictitious, — the money coming from the Union-men's 
fund. On the strength of one fabulous contribution, set down 



HUMANITY OF MR. WHITE. 171 

at fifty dollars, he had given the prisoners over a hixndrod dol- 
lars' worth of provisions, when a Rebel surgeon stopped him. 
" Have n't you paid up that everlasting fifty dollars yet ? " 
" Doctor," said White, producing his pass-book, " I 's an 
honest man, I is ; and if you say I can't put in no more on 
this yer score, you jest write your name hyer." 

The surgeon declining to assume the responsibility. White 
managed to take in to the prisoners, on the same imaginary 
account, milk and eggs to the amount of fifty dollars more. 

" I told you there were only twenty-one Union men in Rich- 
mond," said Mr. W . " I meant tvhite Union men. Some 

of the colored people were as ready to give their means and 
risk their lives for the cause as anybody. One poor negro 
woman, who did washing for Confederate officers, spent her 
earnings to buy flour and bake bread, which she got in to the 
prisoners through a hole under the jail-yard fence ; knowing 
all the while she 'd be shot, if caught at it." 

Mr. W assisted over twenty Union prisoners to escape. 

Among other adventures, he related to me the following : — 

" From our windows we could look right over into the 
prison-yard adjoining us here. Every day we could see the 
dead carried out. In the evening they carried out those who 
had died since morning, and every morning they carried out 
those that had died over night. Once we counted seventeen 
dead men lying together in the yard, all stripped of their 
clothes, ready for burial ; so terrible was the mortality in 
these prisons. The dead-house was in a corner of the yard. 
A negro woman occupied another house outside of the guard- 
line, and close to my garden fence." 

He took me to visit the premises. We entered by a heavy 
wooden gate from the street, and stood within the silent 
enclosure. It was a clear, beautiful evening, and the moon- 
light lay white and peaceful upon the gable of the ware- 
house that had served as a prison, upon the old buikhngs 
and fences, and upon the ground the weary feet of the sick 
prisoners had trodden, and where the outstretched corpses 
had lain. 



172 THE UmOK MEN OF EICHMOND. 

" Every day some of the prisoners would be marched down 
to the medical department, a few blocks below, to be examined. 
A colored girl who lived with us, used to go out with bread 
hid under her apron, and slip it into their hands, if she had 
a chance, as she met them coming back. One morning she 

brought home a note, which one of them, Capt. , had 

given her. It was a letter of thanks ' to his unknown bene- 
factors.' Miss H , who was visiting us at the time, pro- 
posed to answer it. It was much less dangerous for her to do 
so, than it would have been for me, for I was a siaspected 
man ; I had already been six months in a Rebel prison. But 
if she was discovered writing to a Yankee, her family would 
be prepared to express great surprise and indignation at the 
circumstance, and denounce it as a 'love aftair.' " (The 

H s are one of the Union families of Richmond ; and Miss 

H was a young girl of nerve and spirit.) 

" In this way we got into communication with the Captain. 
It was n't long, of course, before he made proposals to Miss 

H ; not of the usual sort, however, but of a kind we 

expected. He and another of the prisoners, a surgeon, had 
resolved to attempt an escape, and they wanted our assist- 
ance. After several notes on the subject had passed, — some 
through the hands of the colored girl, some through a crack 
in the fence, — everything was arranged for a certain evening. 

" Citizens' clothes were all ready for them ; and I obtained a 

promise from G , a good Union man, to conceal them in 

his house until they could be got aAvay. To avoid the very 
thing that happened, he was not to tell his wife ; but she sus- 
pected mischief, — for it 's hard for a man to hide wliat he 
feels, when he knows his life is at stake, — and she gave him 
no peace until he let her into the secret. She declared that 
the men should never be brought into their house. 

" ' We 've just got shet of one boarder,' says she, meaning 
a prisoner they had harbored, ' and I never '11 have another.' 

" I could n't blame her much ; for we were trifling with our 

lives. But CI felt terribly about it. He came down to let 

me know. It was the very evening the men were to come 



AN ESCAPADE. 173 

out, and too late to get word to them. If their plans succeeded, 
they would be sure to come out ; and what was to be done 
with them ? They would not be safe with me an hour. ]\Iy 

house would be the first one searched. G went off', for 

he could do nothing. Then, as it grew dark, we were ex- 
pecting them every moment. There was nobody here but 

Miss H , my wife, and myself. The colored girl was in 

the kitchen. It was dangerous to make any unusual move- 
ments, for the Rebel guard in the street was marching past 
every three minutes, and looking in. We sat quietly talking 
on indifferent subjects, with such sensations inside as nobody 
knows anything about who has n't been through such a scene. 
My clothes Avere wet through with perspiration. Every time 
after the guard had passed, we held our breath, until — 
tramp, tramp ! — he came round again. 

" At last in came the colored girl, rushing from the kitchen, 
in great fright, and gasped out in a hoarse whisper, — ' Lord 
Jesus, master ! two Yankees done come right into our back- 
yard ! ' 

" ' We have nothing to do with the Yankees,' I said ; ' go 
about your work, and let 'em alone.' And still we sat there, 
and talked, or pretended to read, while once more — tramp, 
tramp, tramp — the guard marched by the windows." 

" But there was a guard inside the prison-yard ; how then 
had the Yankees managed to get out ? " 

" I 'm coming to that now. I told you the dead were 
borne out every morning and evening. That evening there 
was an extra body. It was the Yankee Doctor. He had 
bribed the prisoners, who carried out the dead, to carry him 
out. The dead-house was outside of the guard. They laid 
him with the corpses, and returned to the prison. Poor fel- 
lows ! there were four of them ; they were sent to Anderson- 
ville for their share in the transaction, and there every one of 
them died. 

" A little while after, as some prisoners were going in from 
the yard, they got into a fight near the door. The guard 
ran to interfere ; and the Captain, who was waiting for tliis 



174 TPIE UNIOK ME:N" of RICHMOND. 

very chance, — for the scuffle was got up by his friends ex- 
pressly for his benefit, — darted into the negro woman's house, 
and ran up-stairs. From a window he jumped down into my 
garden. In the mean time the Doctor came to b'fe, crawled out 
from among the dead men, pushed a board from the back side 
of the dead-house, climbed the fence, and joined his friend 
the Captain, under our kitchen windows. 

" Not a move was made by any of us. We kept on chat- 
ting, yawning, or pretending to read the newspaper ; and all 
the while the guard in the street was going his rounds and 
peeping in. Everything — the freedom of these men, and 
my life — was hanging by a cobweb. One mistake, a single 
false step, would ruin us. But everything had been prear- 
ranged. They found the clothes ready for them, and we were 
waiting only to give them time to disguise themselves. So 
far, it could not be proved that I had anything to do with the 
business, but the time was coming for me to take it into my 
own hands. 

" I showed you the alley running from the street to my 
back-yard, and now you '11 see why I took you around there. 
The Captain and the Doctor after getting on their disguise, 
were to keep watch by the corner of the house at the end of 
the alley, and wait for the signal, — a gentleman going out of 
the house with a lady on his arm and a white handkerchief in 
his hand. They were to come out of the alley immediately, 
and follow at a respectful distance. 

" Having given them plenty of time, — not very many min- 
utes, however, though they seemed hours to us, — Miss H 

put on her bonnet, and I took my hat ; I watched my opportu- 
nity, and just as the guard had passed, gave her my arm, and set 
out to escort her home. As we went out, I had occasion to 
use my handkerchief, which I flirted, and put back into my 
pocket. We did n't look behind us once, but walked on, 
never knowing whether our men were followmg or not, until, 

after we had passed several corners, Miss H ventured to 

peep over her shoulder. Sure enough, there were two men 
comins: alons after us. 



A HALTER CASE. 175 

" We walked past JefF Davis's house, and stopped at lier 
father's door. There I took leave of her, and walked on 

alone. I had made up my mind what to do. G havino- 

failed us, I must try R ; an odd old man, but true as 

steel. It was a long walk to his house, and it was late when 
I got there. I hid my men in a barn, and knocked at the 
door. 

" ' Anything the matter ? ' says Mrs. R , from the win- 
dow. 

" ' I want to speak with Mr. R a moment,' I said. 

I saw she was frightened, when she found out who I was ; 
but she made haste to let me in. Serious as my business 

was, I could n't help laughing when I found R . He 

sleeps on a mattress, his wife sleeps on feathers ; and both 
occupy the same bed. They compromise their difference of 
taste in this way : they double up the feather-bed for Mrs. 

R ; that gives her a double portion, and makes room for 

R on the mattress. She sleeps on a mountain in the 

foreground ; he, in the valley behind her. 

" ' W ,' says he, looking up over the mountain, ' there 's 

mischief ahead ! You would n't be coming here at this hour 
if there was n't. Is it a Castle Thunder case ? ' 

" ' No,' I said, quietly as I could, for he was very much 
agitated. 

" ' I 'm afraid of Castle Thunder ! ' says he. ' I 'm afraid 
of you ! If it is n't a Castle Thunder case, I demand to 
know what it is.' 

" ' It 's a halter case,' I said. And then I told him. He 
got up and pulled on his clothes. I took out fifty dollars in 
Rebel money, and offered him, for the feeding of the men till 
they could be got away. 

" ' You can't get any of that stuff on to me ! ' says he, 
' I 'm afi-aid of it. We shall all lose our lives, this time, I 'm 
sure. Why did you bring 'em here ? ' 

" But though fully convinced he was to die for it, he finally 
consented to take in the fugitives. So I delivered them into 
his hands ; but my work did n't end there. They were nine 



176 THE UXION MEN OF EICIIMOND. 

days at his house. Meantime, through secret sources, by 
means of bribes, I got passes to take them tlirough the lines. 
These cost me a hundred dollars in greenbacks ; then, when 
everything was ready, all passes were revoked, and they were 
good for nothing. Finally Dennis Shane took the job of run- 
ning them through the lines for five hundred dollars in Rebel 
money. 

" He got them safely through ; and just a month from that 
time one of those men came back for me. General Butler sent 
him : he Avanted to talk with me about affairs in Richmond. 
I went out with a party of seven ; and when near Williams- 
burg we were all captured by a band of Confederate soldiers. 

" I determined not to be taken back to Richmond and 
identified, if I could help it. I got down at a spring to drink, 
crawled along under the bank a little way, as fast as I could, 
then jimiped up, and ran for my life. I was shot at, and 
chased ; they put dogs on my track ; I was four days and 
nights without food ; but I escaped, Avhile all the rest were 
carried back. After that I ran the lines to Butler whenever 
he wanted to see me, until it was n't safe for me to go back to 
Richmond, where my operations had become known. 

" After the war Avas over, and our troops had possession," 

added Mr. W , " then I came back, and saw what I had 

never expected to see in this world. I saw the very men who 
had robbed, persecuted, and imprisoned me, rewarded by our 
government. I came back to find that under the administration 
of our own generals, Ord and Patrick, it was in a man's favor 
to be known as a secessionist, and against him to be known as 
a Union man. The Union men were insulted and bullied by 
them, the colored people were treated worse under their rale 
than they had ever been by the Rebels themselves, and the 
secessionists were coaxed and petted. A Rebel could obtain 
from government whatever he asked for ; but a Union man 
could obtain nothing. When we were feeding and flattering 
them at a rate that made every loyal man sick at heart, I sent 
a request in wi'iting for a little hay for my horse. I got a 
refusal in writing : I could n't have any hay. At the same 



PARTIALITY TO TRAITORS. 177 

time the government was feeding in its stables thirty horses 
for General Lee and his staff." 

A hmidred similar instances of partiality shown to the 
Rebels by the Ord and Patrick administration were related 
to me by eye-witnesses ; coupled with accounts of insults and 
outrages heaped upon loyal men and Freedmen. Happily Ord 
and Patrick and their pro-slavery rule had passed away ; but 
there were still complaints that it was not the true Union men 
who had the ear of the government, but those whose unionism 
had been put on as a matter of policy and convenience. This 
was no fault of General Terry, although he was blamed for 
it. When I told him what I had heard, he said warmly, — 

" Why don't these men come to me ? They are the very 
men I wish to see." 

" The truth is, General, they w^ere snubbed so often by 
your predecessors that they have not the heart to come." 

" But I have not snubbed them. I have not shown par- 
tiality to traitors. Everybody that knows me knows that I 
have no love for slavery or treason, and that every pulse of 
my heart throbs wnth sympathy for these men and the cause 
in which they have suffered." 

One evening I met by appointment, at the tent of the 
Union Commission, a number of the dauntless twenty-one, 
and accompanied them to a meeting of the Union League. It 
was a beautiful night, and as we w^alked by the rainy fountain, 
under the still trees, one remarked, — 

" Many an evening, when there was as pretty a moon as 
this, I have Avished that I might die and be out of my misery. 
That was when I was in prison for being loyal to my country." 

At the rooms of the League I was surrounded by these 
men, nearly every one of Avhom had been exiled or impris- 
oned for that cause. I witnessed the initiation of new-comers ; 
but in the midst of the impressive solemnities I could not but 
reflect, " How faint a symbol is this of the real League to which 
the twenty-one were sworn in their hearts ! To belong to this 
is now safe and easy enough ; but to have been a true member 
of that, under the reign of terror, — how very different ! " 

12 



178 MARKETS AND FARMING. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

MARKETS AND FARMING. 

The negro population of Richmond gives to its streets a 
peculiarly picturesque and animated appearance. Colored faces 
predominate ; but of these not more than one in five or six 
shows unmixed African blood ; and you are reminded less of 
an American city than of some town of Southern Europe. 
More than once I could have fancied myself in Naples, but 
that I looked in vain for the crowds of importunate beggars, 
and the dark-skinned lazzaroni lying all day in the sunshine 
on the street corners. I saw no cases of mendicancy among 
the colored people of Richmond, and very little idleness. The 
people found at work everywhere belonged to the despised 
race ; while the frequenters of bar-rooms, and loungers on 
tavern-steps, were white of skin. To get drunk, especially, 
appeared to be a prerogative of the chivalry. 

The mules and curious vehicles one sees add to the pict- 
uresqueness of the streets. The market-carts are character- 
istically droll. A little way off you might fancy them dog- 
carts. Under their little ribbed canvas covers are carried 
little jags of such produce as the proprietor may have to sell, 
— a few cabbages, a few pecks of sweet potatoes, a pair of 
live chickens, tied together by the legs ; a goose or a duck in 
a box, its head sticking out ; with perhaps a few eggs and egg- 
plants. These little carts, drawn by a mule or the poorest 
of ponies, have been driven perhaps a dozen or fifteen miles, 
brinoino; to market loads, a dozen of which would scarcely 
equal what a New-York farmer, or a New-England market- 
gardener often heaps upon a single wagon. 

In the markets, business is transacted on the same petty 
scale. You see a great number of dealers, and extraordinary 



SCENE IN THE MARKET. 179 

throngs of purchasers, considering the httle that appears to be 
sold. Not every producer has so much even as an antiquated 
mule-cart. Many come to market with what they can carry 
on their backs or in their hands. Yonder is an old nesro 
with a turkey, which he has walked five miles to dispose of 
here. That woman with a basket of eggs, whose rags and 
sallow complexion show her to be one of the poor whites whom 
respectable colored people look down upon, has travelled, it 
may be, quite as far. Here comes a mulatto boy, with a string 
of rock-fish caught in the James. This old man has hard 
peaches in his bag ; and that other woman contributes a box 
of wild grapes. 

People of all colors and all classes surround the sheds or press 
in throngs through the passages between the stalls. The fine 
lady, followed by her servant bearing a basket, has but little 
money ; and although she endeavors to make it go as far as 
possible, it must be a small family that can subsist until Mon- 
day upon what she carries away. There is little money to 
be seen anywhere ; in which respect these scenes are very 
different from those witnessed during the last years of Confed- 
erate rule, when it was said that people went to market with 
baskets to carry their money, and wallets to bring home what 
it would buy. The markets are not kept open during the 
evening, and as the hour for closing them arrives, the bar- 
gaining and loud talking grow more and more vivacious, while 
prices decline. I remember one fellow who jumped upon his 
table, and made a speech, designed to attra;ct the patronage 
of the freedmen. 

" Walk up hyer, and buy cheap ! " he shouted. " I don't 
say niggers ; I say ladies and gentlemen. Niggers is played 
out ; they 're colored people now, and as good as anybody." 

The markets indicate the agricultural enterprise of a com- 
munitv. Yet, even after seeino- those of Richmond, I was 
amazed at the petty and shiftless system of farming I witnessed 
around the city. I was told that it was not much better before 
tlie war. The thrifty vegetable gardens of the North, pro- 
ducing two or three crops a year ; tlie long rows of hot-beds 



180 MARKETS AND FARMING. 

by the fences, starting cucumbers and supplying the market 
with greens sometimes before the snow is gone, — such things 
are scarcely known in the capital of Virginia. " We have 
lettuce but a month or two in the year," said a lady, who was 
surprised to learn how Northern gardeners managed to pro- 
duce it in and out of season. 

In one of my rides I passed the place of a Jersey former, 
about three miles from the city. It looked like an oasis in the 
desert. I took pains to make the proprietor's acquaintance, 
and learn his experience. 

" I came here and bought in '59 one hundred and twenty- 
seven acres for four thousand dollars. The first thing I did 
was to build that barn. Everybody laughed at me. The 
most of the farms have no barns at all ; and such a large one 
was a wonder, — it must have been built by a fool or a crazy 
man. This year I have that barn full to the rafters. 

" I found the land worn out, like nearly all the land in the 
country. The way Virginia folks have spoilt their farms looks 
a good deal more like fools or crazy men than my barn. First, 
if there was timber, they burnt it off and put a good coat of 
ashes on the soil. Then they raised tobacco three or four 
years. Then corn, till the soil got run out and they could n't 
raise anything. Then they went to putting on guano, which 
was like giving rum to an exhausted man ; it just stimulated 
the soil till all the strength there was left was burnt out. 
That was the condition of my farm when I came here. 

" The first thing I did, I went to hauling out manure from 
Richmond. I was laughed at for that too. The way people 
do here, they throw away their manure. They like to have 
their farm-yards high and dry ; so they place them on the 
side of a hill, where every rain washes them, and carries off 
into the streams the juices that ought to be saved for the land. 
They left their straws-tacks any number of years, then drew 
the straw out on the farms dry. I made my barn-yard in a 
hollow, and rotted, the straw in it. Now I go to market every 
day with a big Jersey farm-Avagon loaded down with stuff." 

He had been getting rich, notwithstanding the Avar. I 
asked what labor he employed. 



FARMS FOR SALE. 181 

" Negro labor mostly. It was hard to get any other here. 
I did n't own slaves, but hired them of their masters. Only 
the poorest hands were usually hired out in that way ; I could 
seldom get first-class hands ; yet I always found that by kind 
treatment and encouragement I could make very good laborers 
of those I had. I get along still better with them now they 
are free." 

" Do you use horses ? " 

" No ; mules altogether. Two mules are equal to three 
horses. Mules are not subject to half the diseases horses are. 
They eat less, and wear twice as long." 

I found farms of every description for sale, around Rich- 
mond. The best land on the James River Bottom could be 
bought at prices varying from forty to one hundred dollars an 
acre. I remember one very desirable estate, of eight hundred 
acres, lying on the river, three miles from the city, which was 
offered for sixty dollars. There were good buildings on it; 
and the owner was making fences of old telegraph wire, to 
replace those destroyed during the war. 



182 IN AND AROUND RICHMOND. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

IN AND AEOUND RICHMOND. 

' If temples are a token of godliness, Richmond should be a 
holy city. It has great pride in its churches ; two of which 
are noteworthy. 

The first is St. John's Church, on Church Hill, — a large, 
square-looking wooden meeting-house, whose ancient walls 
and rafters once witnessed a famous scene, and reechoed 
words that have become historical. Here was delivered 
Patrick Henry's celebrated speech, since spouted by every 
schoolboy, — "Give me liberty or give me death!" Those 
shining sentences still hang like a necklace on the breast of 
American Liberty. The old meeting-house stands where it 
stood, overlooking the same earth and the same beautiful 
stream. But the men of that age lie buried in the dust of 
these old crowded church-yards ; and of late one might almost 
have said that the wisdom of Virginia lay buried with them. 

On the corner of Grace Street, opposite my hotel, I looked 
out every morning upon the composite columns and pilasters, 
and spire clean as a stiletto, of St. Paul's Church, Avith which 
are connected very different associations. This is the church, 
and (if you enter) yonder is the pew, in which Jeff Davis 
sat on Sundays, and heard the gospel of Christ interpreted 
from the slave-owners' point of view. Here he sat on that 
memorable Sabbath when Lee's dispatch was handed in to 
him, saying that Richmond was lost. The same preacher who 
preached on that day, still propounds his doctrines from the 
desk. The same sexton who handed in the dispatch glances 
at you, and, if you are well dressed, offers you a seat in a 
good place. The same white congregation that arose then 
in confusion and dismay, on seeing the President go out, sit 



HOLLYWOOD AND OAKWOOD CEMETERIES. 183 

quietly once more in their seats ; and the same colored con- 
gregation looks down from the nigger gallery. The seats are 
still bare, — the cushions that were carried to the Rebel hos- 
pitals, to serve as mattresses, having not yet been returned. 

Within an arrow's shot from St. Paul's, in the State 
Capitol, on Capitol Square, were the halls of the late Confed- 
erate Congress. I visited them only once, and found them a 
scene of dust and confusion, — emblematical. The desks and 
seats had been ripped up, and workmen were engaged in 
sweeping out the last vestiges of Confederate rule. The fur- 
niture, as I learned, was already at an auction-room on Main 
Street, selling under the hammer. I reported the fact to Mr. 
C , of the Union Commission, who was looking for furni- 
ture to be used in the freedmen's schools ; and he made haste 
to bid for the relics. I hope he got them ; for I can fancy no 
finer stroke of poetical justice than the conversion of the seats 
on which sat the legislators of the great slave empire, and the 
desks on which they wrote, into seats and desks for little negro 
children learning to read. 

It was interesting, by the light of recent events, and in 
company with one "svho knew Richmond of yore, to make the 
tour of the old negro auction-rooms. Davis & Co.'s Nern'o 
Bazaar was fitting up for a concert hall. We entered a 
grocery store, — a broad basement room, with a low, dark 
ceiling, supported by two stout wooden pillars. " I 've seen 
many a black Samson sold, standing between those posts ; and 
many a woman too, as wdiite as ^''ou or I." Now sugar- and 
rice w^ere sold there, but no more human flesh and blood. 
The store was kept by a Northern man, who did not even 
know what use the room had served in former years. 

A short ride from the city are two cemeteries worth vis- 
iting. On one side, Hollywood, where lie buried President 
Monroe and his doctrine. On the other side, Oak Wood, a 
wild, uncultivated hill, half covered with timber and brush, 
shading numerous Confederate soldiers' graves. Here, set 
apart from the rest by a rude fence, is the " Yankee Cem- 
etery," crowded with the graves of patriot soldiers, who fell 



184 IN AND AROUND RICHMOND. 

in battle, or died of slow starvation and disease in Richmond 
prisons ; a melancholy field, which I remember as I saw it 
one gnsty September day, when wild winds swept it, and 
shook down over it whirling leaves from the reeling and 
roaring trees. 

Lieut. M , of the Freedmen's Commission, having 

invited me to visit Camp Lee, about two miles from the city, 
came for me one afternoon in a fine large carryall, comfort- 
ably covered, cushioned, and carpeted. 

"• Perhaps you will not feel honored," he remarked, as we 
rattled up Broad Street, " but you will be interested to know 
that this is General Robert E. Lee's head-quarters' wagon. 
You are riding on the seat he rode on through the campaigns 
of the last two years. Your feet are on a piece of carpet 
which one of the devoted secessionists of Richmond took 
up from his hall-floor expressly to line the General's wagon- 
bottom, — little thinking Yankee boot-soles would ever dese- 
crate it ! After Lee's surrender, this wagon was turned over 
to the quartermaster's department, and the quartermaster 
turned it over to us." I was interested, indeed ; I was car- 
ried back to those sanguinary campaigns ; and I fancied I 
could see the face of him sittino; there where 1 sat, and read 
the thoughts of his mind, and the emotions of his heart, in 
those momentous nights and days. I imagined the plains he 
revolved in his brain, shut in by those dark curtains ; what he 
felt after victory, and what after defeat ; the weariness of 
body and soul ; the misgivings, the remorse, when he remem- 
bered his treason and the folly of Virginia, — for he cer- 
tainly remembered them in the latter gloomy periods, when 
he saw the black cloud of doom settling down upon a bad and 
failing cause. 

Camp Lee, formerly a fair ground, was the conscript camp 
of the Confederacy. I had been told many sad stories of young 
men, and men of middle age, some of them loyal, seized by 
the conscript officers and sent thither, as it were to a reservoir 
of the people's blood, whose stream was necessary to keep the 
machinery of despotism in motion. I paced the grounds 



THE CONSCRIPT CAMP. 185 

where, Avith despairing hearts, they took their first lessons in 
the art by which they were to slay and be slain. I stood by 
the tree under w^hicli deserters were shot. Then I turned to 
a very different scene. 

The old barrack buildings were now the happy homes of a 
village of freedmen. Groui)s of barefooted and woolly-headed 
negro children were at play before the doors, filling the air 
with their laughter, and showing .^11 their ivory with grins of 
delight as I passed among them. The old men took off their 
caps to me, the wise old aunties welcomed me with dignified 
smiles, and the younger women looked up brightly from their 
ironing or cooking as I went by. The young men were all 
away at their work. It was, with few exceptions, a self-sup- 
porting community, only about a dozen old or infirm persons, 
out of three hundred, receiving aid from the government. 

A little removed from the negro village was a cottage for- 
merly occupied by Confederate officers. 

" In that house," said the Lieutenant, " is living a very re- 
markable character. You know liim by reputation, , for- 
merly one of the ablest writers on ' De Bow's Review,' and 
considered the great champion of slavery in the South." 

" What I the author of ? " a somewhat celebrated 

book in its day, and in tlie latitude for which it was written ; 
designed to set forth the corrupt and perishable nature of free 
societies and progressive ideas, and to show that slavery was 
the one divine and enduring institution. 

" The very man. He is now a pauper, living on the bounty 
of the government. The rent of that cottage is given him, 
and he draws rations of the Relief Commission. He will be 
glad to see you ; and he has two accomplished daughters you 
will be glad to see." 

Accordingly we called upon him ; but, declining to enter the 
house, we sat under the stoop, where we could look across the 
desolate country at the sunset sky. 

Mr. , an emaciated, sallow, feeble old man, received 

us affably, and talked with us freely on his flivorite topics. 
He had lived to see the one divine and enduring institution 



186 IK AND AROUND RICHMOND. 

die ; but civilization still survived ; and the race that found its 
welfare and happiness only in bondage seemed pretty well off, 
and tolerably happy, — witness the negro village close by : and 
the world of progressive ideas still moved on. Yet this great 
champion of slavery did not appear to have learned the first 
lesson of the times. All his arguments were the old argu- 
ments ; he knew nothing but the past, which was gone for- 
ever ; and the future to him was chaos. 

His two daughters, young and accomplished, came and sat 
with us in the twilight, together with a vivacious young lady 

from Richmond. On our return to the city, Miss accom- 

accompanied us, with their visitor. The latter proved to be 
an audacious and incorrigible little Rebel, and regaled us with 
secesh songs. I remember a few lines. 

" You can never "win us back, 

Never, never, 
Though we perish in the track 

Of your endeavor ! " 

" You have no such noble blood 

For the shedding : 
In the veins of Cavaliers 

Was its heading ! 
You have no such noble men 
In your abolition den, 
To march through fire and fen, 

Nothing dreading ! " 



DOUBTFUL UKION SENTBIENT. 187 



CHAPTER XXV. 

PEOPLE AND POLITICS. 

One day I dined at the house of a Union man of a differ- 
ent stamp from the twenty-one I have mentioned. He was 
one of the wealthy citizens of Richmond, — a man of timid 
disposition and conservative views, who had managed admi- 
rably to conceal his Union sentiments during the war. He 
had been on excellent terms with Jeff Davis and members 
of his cabinet ; and he was now on excellent terms with the 
United States authorities. A prudent citizen, not wanting in 
kindness of heart; yet he could say of the Emancipation 
Act, — 

" It will prove a good thing for the slave-owners ; for it 
will be quite as cheap to hire our labor as to own it, and ive 
shall now be rid of supporting the old arid decrepit servants^ 
such as were formerly left to die on our hands. ^^ 

On being asked if he considered that he owed nothing 
to those aged servants, he smoothed his chin, and looked 
thoughtful, but made no reply. 

An anecdote will show of what stuff the Unionism of this 
class is composed. His name happened to be the same as 
that of one of our generals. During the war, a Confederate 
officer, visiting his house, said to him, — "I am told you are a 
near relative of General , of the Federal army." 

" It 's a slander ! " was the indignant reply. " He is no 
kin of mine, and I would disown him if he was." 

After the occupation by our troops, Union officers were 
welcomed at his house ; one of whom said to him, — 

" Are you related to our famous General ? 

"Very likely, very likely," was the complacent answer; 
*' the 's are all connected." 



188 PEOPLE AND POLITICS. 

Next to the uncompromising Union men, the most sin- 
cerely loyal Virginians I saw in Richmond, or elsewhere, were 
those who had been lately fighting against us. Only now 
and then a Confederate soldier had much of the spirit of the 
Rebellion left in him. 

" The truth is," said Colonel D , " we have had the 

devil whipped out of us. It is only those who kept out of 
the figlit that are in favor of continuing it. I fought you with 
all my miglit until we got whipped ; then I gave it up as a 
bad job ; and now there 's not a more loyal man in the United 
States than I am." He had become thoroughly converted 
from the heresy of secession. " No nation can live that toler- 
ates such a doctrine ; and, if we had succeeded, the first 
thing we should have done would have been to repudiate it." 

I became acquainted with several officers of this class, who 
inspired me with confidence and sympathy. Yet when one of 
them told me he had been awarded a government place, with 
four thousand a year, I could not help saying, — 

" What right have you to such a place ? How many capa- 
ble and worthy men, who have been all the while fighting for 
the government you have been fighting against^ would be 
thankful for a situation with one half or one quarter the 
salary ! " 

The animus of the secessionists who kept out of the war, 
and especially of the women, still manifested itself spitefully 
on occasions. 

" It is amusing," said Mrs. W , " to see the pains some 

of them take to avoid walking under the flag we keep flying 
over our door." 

Two female teachers of the freed people had, after much 
trouble, obtained board and lodgings in a private family, 
where the treatment they received was such as no sensitive 
person could endure. They were obliged to leave, and ac- 
cept quarters in a Confederate government building not much 
better than a barn. Many Richmond families were glad 
enough to board army officers for their money ; but few 
were prepared to receive and treat decently " nigger teach- 
ers," at any price. 



CONFEDERATE PATRIOTISM. 189 

** Yet the people of Richmond are not what they were five 

years ago," said General S , who knew them well, being 

himself a Virginian. " Their faces have changed. They 
have a dazed look, like owls in a sudden light. To any one 
who used to see them in the old days of their pride and spirit, 
this is very striking. There never was such a downfall, and 
they have not yet recovered from the shock. They seem to 
be groping about, as if they had lost something, or were wait- 
ing for something. Whatever may be said of them, or what- 
ever they may say of themselves, they feel that they are a 
conquered people." 

" They tvere a conquered people," said the radical Union 
men. " There never was a rebellious class more thoroughly 
subdued. They expected no mercy from the government, for 
they deserved none. They were prepared to submit to every- 
thing, even to negro suffrage ; for they supposed nothing less 
would be required of them. But the more lenient the gov- 
ernment, the more arrogant they become." 

Of Confederate patriotism I did not hear very favorable 
accounts. It burst forth in a beautiful tall flame at the begin- 
ning of the war. There were soldiers' aid societies, patron- 
ized by ladies whose hands were never before soiled by labor. 
Stockings were knit, shirts cut and sewed, and carpets con- 
verted into blankets, by these lovely hands. If a fine fellow 
appeared among them, more inclined to gallantry in the parlor 
than to gallantry in the field, these same lovely hands thrust 
him out, and he was told that " only ' the brave deserve the 
fair.' " But Southern heat is flashy and intense ; it does not 
hold out like the slow, deep fire of the North. The soldiers' 
aid societies soon grew to be an old story, and the lovely ones 
contented themselves with cheerino; and wavino; their hand- 
kerchiefs when the " noble defenders of the South " marched 
through the streets. 

The " noble defenders of the South " did not, I regret to 
say, appreciate the cheers and the handkerchiefs as they did 
the shirts and the blankets. 

" Many a time," said Mrs. H , " I have heard them 



190 PEOPLE AND POLITICS. 

yell back at the ladies who cheered them, ' Go to ! If 

you care for us, come out of your fine clothes and help us ! ' 
After the people stopped giving, the soldiers began to help 
themselves. I 've seen them rush into stores as they passed, 
snatch whatever they wanted, and march on again, hooting, 
with loaves of bread and pieces of meat stuck on the points 
of their bayonets." 

The sons and brothers of influential families were kept out 
of the Avar by an ingenious system of details. Every man was 
conscripted ; but, while the poor and friendless were hurried 
away to fight the battles of slavery, the favored aristocrat 
would get " detailed " to fill some "bomb-proof" situation, as 
it was called. 

" These ' bomb-proofs ' finally got to be a very great nui- 
sance. Men were ' detailed ' to fill every comfortable berth 
the government, directly or indirectly, had anything to do 
with ; and as the government usurped, in one way or another, 
nearly all kinds of business, it soon became difficult for an old 
or infirm person to get any sort of light employment. A 
friend of mine, whom the war had ruined, came down from 
the country, thinking he could get something to do here. He 
saw able-bodied young men oiling the wheels of the cars. He 
was old and lame, but he felt himself well able to do that kind 
of work. So he applied for a situation, and found that the 
young men he saw were ' detailed ' from the army. Others 
were ' detailed ' to carry lanterns for them when they had 
occasion to oil the car-wheels at night. It was so with every 
situation the poor man could have filled." 

This Avas the testimony of a candid old gentleman, himself 
an aristocrat, at Avhose house I passed an evening. 

I took an early opportunity to make the acquaintance of 
Governor Pierpoint, whom I found to be a plain, somewhat 
burly, exceedingly good-humored and sociable person. The 
executive mansion occupies pleasant grounds, enclosed from a 
corner of Capitol Square ; and as it was not more than three 
minutes' walk from my hotel, I found it often very agreeable 
to go over and spend a leisure hour or two in his libraiy. 



ADVANTAGES TO NORTHERN BUSINESS IMEN. 191 

Once I remarked to him : " What Virginia needs is an in- 
flux of Northern ideas, Northern energy, Northern capital ; 
what other way of salvation is open to her? " 

" None ; and she knows it. It is a mistake to suppose that 
Northern men and Northern capital are not welcome here. 
They are most heartily welcome ; they are invited. Look at 
this." 

He showed me a beautiful piece of white clay, and a hand- 
some pitcher made from it. 

" Within eighty miles of Richmond, by railroad, there are 
beds of this clay from which might be manufactured pottery 
and porcelain sufficient to supply the entire South. Yet they 
have never been worked ; and Virginia has imported all her 
fine crockery-ware. Now Northern energy will come in and 
coin fortunes out of that clay. Under the old kibor system, 
Viro-inia never had any enterprise ; and now she has no 
money. The advantages she offers to active business men 
were never surpassed. Richmond is surrounded with iron 
mines and coal-fields, wood-lands and fai'm-lands of excellent 
quality ; and is destined from' its very position, under the new 
order of things, to run up a population of two or three hundred 
thousand, within not many years." 

I inquired about the state finances. 

" The Rebel State debt will, of course, never be paid. The 
old State debt, amounting to forty millions, will eventually be 
paid, although the present is a dark day for it. There is no 
live stock to eat the grass ; the mills are destroyed ; business 
is at a stand-still ; there is no bank-stock to tax, — nothing to 
tax, I might almost say, but the bare land. We shall pay no 
interest on the debt this year ; and it will probably be three 
years before the back interest is paid. We have twenty-two 
millions invested in railroads, and these will all be put in a living 
condition in a short time. Then I count upon the development 
of our natural resources. In mineral wealth and agricultural 
advantages Virginia is inconceivably rich, as a few years will 
amply testify." 

As an illustration of native enterprise, he told me that there 



192 PEOPLE AND POLITICS. 

was but one village containing fifty inhabitants on the canal 
between Richmond and Lynchburg, a distance of one hundred 
and fifty miles ; and land lying upon it was worth no more 
to-day than it was before the canal was constructed. " Neither 
is there a village of any size on the James River, between Rich- 
mond and Norfolk. How long would it be before brick villa- 
ges and manufacturing towns would spring up on such a canal 
and river in one of the free States? Was n't it about time," 
he added, " for the old machine to break to pieces ? " 

At the hotel I used to meet a prosperous looking, liberal- 
faced, wide-awake person, Avhom I at once set down as a Yan- 
kee. On making his acquaintance, I learned that he was at 
the head of a company of Northern men who had recently 
purchased extensive coal-fields near the James River, twelve 
miles above Richmond. 

"The mines," he said, "had been exhausted once, and 
abandoned, so we bought them cheap. These Virginians 
would dig a little pit and take out coal until water came in 
and interfered with their work ; then they would go some- 
where else and dig another little pit. So they worked over 
the surfl\ce of the fields, but left the great body of the coal 
undisturbed. They baled with a mule. Now Ave have come 
in with a few steam-pumps which will keep the shafts free 
from water as fast as we sink them ; and we are taking out car- 
goes of as good anthracite as ever you saw. Here is some 
of it now," pointing to a line of loaded carts coming up from 
the wharf, where the coal was landed. 

I asked what labor he employed. 

" Negro labor. There is none better. I have worked 
negroes all my life, and prefer them in my business to any 
other class of laborers. Treat a negro like a man, and you 
make a man of him." 

I also made the acquaintance of a New Yorker, who was work- 
ing a gold mine in Orange County, Va., and whose testimony 
was the same with regard to native methods and negro labor. 
In short, wherever I went, I became, every day, more strongly 
convinced that the vast, beautiful, rich, torpid state of Vir- 



SPEECH OF A PLAYED-OUT POLITICIAN. 193 

ginia Avas to owe her regeneration to Northern ideas and free 
institutions. 

Hearing loud laughter in the court-house one evening, I 
looked in, and saw a round, ruddy, white-haired, hale old man 
making a humorous speech to a mixed crowd of respectable 

citizens and rowdies. It was the Honorable Mr. P , 

bidding for their votes. A played-out politician, he had dis- 
appeared from public view a quarter of a century before, but 
had now come up again, thinking there was once more a chance 
for himself in the paucity of able men, whom the barrier of 
the test-oath left eligible to Congress. 

" As for that oath," said he, with a solemn countenance, 
" I confess it is a bitter cup ; and I have prayed that it might 
pass from me." 

Here he paused, and took a sip of brandy from a glass on 
the desk before him. Evidently that cup was n't so bitter, 
for he smacked his lips, and looked up with a decidedly re- 
freshed expression. 

" Fellow-citizens," said he, " I am o-oino; to tell vou a little 
story," — clapping his cane under his arm, and peering under 
his gray eyebrows. " It will show you my position Avith re- 
gard to that abominable oath. In the good old Revolutionary 
times, there lived somewhere on the borders a pious Scotch- 
man, whose farm was run over one day by the red-coats, and 
the next by the Continentals ; so that it required the most 
delicate manoeuvering on his part to keep so much as a pig or 
a sheep (to say nothing of his own valuable neck) safe from 
the two armies. Now what did this pious Scotchman do ? In 
my opinion he did very wisely. When the red-coats caught 
him, he took the oath of allegiance to the Crown. The next 
day, when the Continentals picked him up, he took tlie same 
oath to the Continental Congress. Now, beinn; a deacon of 
the Presbyterian Church, in good and regular standing, cer- 
tain narrow-minded brethren saw fit to remonstrate with him, 
asking how he could reconcile his conscience to such a course. 

" ' My friends,' said he, ' I have thought over the matter, 
and I have prayed over it; and I have concluded that it is 

13 



194 PEOPLE AND POLITICS. 

safer to trust my soul in the hands of a merciful God, than 
my property in tlie hands of those thieving rascals.' 

"Fellow-citizens," resumed the candidate, after a storm of 
laughter on the part of the crowd, and another a sip of the cup 
rot bitter, on his part, " I have thought over it, and prayed 
over it, and I have concluded that I can conscientiously take 
that abominable test-oath ; in other words, that it is safer to 
trust my soul in the hands of a merciful God, than my 
country in the hands of the Black Repubhcans." 

He then proceeded to malign the people of the North, and 
to misrepresent their motives, in a spirit of buffoonery and 
shameless mendacity, which amazed me. The more out- 
rageous the lies he told, the louder the screams of applause 
from his delighted audience. I could not have helped laugh- 
ing at the ludicrousness of his caricatures, had I not seen that 
they passed for true pictures with a majority of his hearers ; or 
had I not remembered that it was such reckless political lying 
as this, which had so lately misled to their ruin the ignorant 
masses of the South. 

Having finished his speech and his brandy, he sat down ; 
and a rival candidate mounted the platform. 

" B ! B ! " shrieked the ungrateful crowd, clap- 
ping and stamping as frantically for the new speaker as for 
him who had labored so long for their amusement. There- 
upon, the Honorable Mr. P , pitching his hat over his 

eyes, and brandishing his cane, advanced upon his rival. 

B , a much younger and more slender man, quietly 

stripped up his coat-sleeves, exposing his linen to the elbows, 
and showing himself prepared for emergencies ; whereat the 
veils became deafening. A few words passed between the 
rival candidates ; after which B folded his arms and per- 
mitted P to make an explanation. It appeared from this 

that P had written to B , inviting him to become a 

candidate for Congress. B had declined. Then P 

came forward as a candidate ; and then B , changing his 

mind, said he would be a candidate too. Hence their quarrel. 
Calmly, with his sleeves still up, or ready to come up, — 



CONGRESSIOI^AL CANDIDATES. 195 

for p was continually advancing upon liim with cane 

lifted and hat set fiercely on his head, — B replied, giv- 

ino- his version of the misunderstanding. He admitted that 

P had written him such a letter. " But his suggestion 

with regard to my becoming a candidate was very feeble, 
while the intimation which accompanied it, that he meant to 
run if I did n't, was very strong ; reminding me of the 
boarder at the hotel-table, who coveted a certain dish of 
cakes. ' Here, waiter,' said he, ' see if any of the gentle- 
men will have these cakes, for if they won't, I will.' Of 
course I declined the cakes. But tliey have been passed to 
me by others in a very different spirit, and ipow I mean to 
have them if I can get them, — with all deference to the 
appetite of my venerable friend." 

The crowd hooted, shrieked, roared. " Venerable friend " 
grasped his glass savagely, but, finding it empty, dashed it 
down again* and sprang to his feet. Desperately puffed, red 
in the face, once more whirling his cane aloft and knocking 
his hat over his brows, I thought, if he did not first get a 

stroke of apoplexy, B would this time surely get a stroke 

of the stick. But B grimly stood his ground ; and, 

after irlarino; at him a moment as if about to burst, P 

muttered, " Go to the devil, then ! " buttoned his coat, gave 
his hat another knock, and stalked out of the house amid a 
tumult of merriment and derision. 

Nearly always, on such occasions, the disputant who loses 

his temper, loses his cause. >B now had everything his 

o\^ai way ; and a very good speech he made. He was one of 
those original Union men who had at first opposed secession, 
but afterwards yielded to the storm that swept over the State. 
Sent to the Convention to oppose it there, he had ended by vot- 
ing for it, under instructions from his constituency. He had 
kept aloof from war and politics during the Rebellion, and 
could take the test oath ; that was no such bitter cup to him. 
He spoke very feelingly of the return of Virginia to her place 
in the Union ; praised the government for its clemency and 
moderation, and advocated a forbearing policy towards the 



196 PEOPLE AND POLITICS. 

freedmen, whom the previous speaker wished to see driven 
out of the State ; seasoning his speech for tlie vulgar with 
timely panegyrics on the heroism of the Confederate soldiers. 

The election took place a few days later ; and I thought it 
creditable to the good sense of the district that the younger 
candidate was chosen. 

Of the political views of the people, or of the real senti- 
ments of the speakers themselves, not much was to be learned 
at such a meeting;. The heart of the South was boilino- with 
thoughts and emotions which did not come openly to the sur- 
face. On the subject of the national debt, for example. Pub- 
lic speakers and public prints were ominously silent about it ; 
and seldom could a discreet citizen be induced to speak of it 
with any degree of frankness. I was plainly told, however, 
by a gentleman of Richmond, that the question was often 
privately discussed, and that the secessionists woijld never, if 
they could help it, submit to be taxed to pay the expenses of 
their own subjugation. 

" But how is it proposed to help it ? " 

" The first step is to resume their place in the Union. 
Until that is accomplished, they will remain silent on this 
and some other delicate subjects. They hope gradually to 
regain their old power in the nation, when they will unite 
with the Democratic party of the North, and repudiate the 
debt." 

If I could have been seriously alarmed by such a prospect, 
what I witnessed at political meetings and elsewhere, would 
have done much to dispel my apprehensions. I was strongly 
impressed by this important fact. The old trained politicians, 
— whom a common interest, slavery, banded together, and 
whom no consideration of reason or justice could turn from 
their purpose, — that formidable phalanx had been broken : 
nearly every man of them had taken an active part in the Re- 
bellion, and could not therefore, without shameful recreancy 
and voluntary humiliation on the part of the North, be read- 
mitted to the councils of the nation they had attempted to 
destroy. In their place we may for some years hope to see a 



NEW MEN". 197 

very different class of men, whose youtli, or modesty, or 
good fortune, or good sense, before kept them aloof from 
political life ; men new to the Congressional arena, and there- 
fore more susceptible to the regenerating influence of national 
ideas and institutions. 



198 FOETIFICATIOI^S. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

FOETIFICATIONS. — DUTCH GAP. — FAIR OAKS. 

At nine o'clock one fine morning, Major K , the 

young Jiidge-Advocate of the Department of Virginia, called 
for me by appointment, accompanied by an orderly bringing 
a tall war-horse General Terry was so kind as to furnish for 
my use. 

I was soon mounted, and riding out of the city by the 
Major's side, — down the long, hilly street, past the Rocketts, 
by the left bank of the river, taking the New-Market Road. 
First we came to a circle of detached forts surrounding the 
city ; a few minutes' ride farther on brought us to a heavy 
continuous line of earthworks surrounding the first line. 
These were the original fortifications of Richmond. Crossing 
a desolate undulating country of Aveeds and undergrowth, we 
reached the works below Laurel Hill, of more recent construc- 
tion, and of a more formidable character. The embankments 
were eischteen feet hioh from the bottom of the ditch. This 
was some six feet deep and twelve broad. There were two 
lines of bristling abatis. These, together with the wooden 
revetments of the works, had been levied upon by the inhab- 
itants in search of firewood. 

Three quarters of a mile beyond we came to the heavy 
intrenchments of the Army of the James. Between the two 
lines Avere the picket-lines of the opposing forces, in places no 
more than three hundred yards apart. Here the tAvo armies 
lay and watched each other through the last Aveary Autumn 
and Winter of the Avar. The earth Avas blotched Avith " gopher 
holes," — hasty excaA'ations in Avhich the veteran A^dettes pro- 
ceeded at once to intrench themselves, on being sent out to a 
neAV post. " It AA^as astonishing," said the Major, " to see 



200 FORTIFICATIONS. — DUTCH GAP. 

■what a breastwork they would throw up in a few minutes, 
■with no other tools than a bayonet and a tin-plate. The mo- 
ment they were at their station, down they went, scratching 
and digoino;." 

We had previously stopped at Laurel Hill, to look across 
the broken country on the south, at Fort Gilmer, which the 
troops of General Foster's division charged with such unfortu- 
nate results. The Major, then serving on Foster's staff, par- 
ticipated in that affair. " I never can look upon this field," 
said he, " without emotion. I lost some of my dearest friends 
in that assault." 

So it is in every battle : somebody loses his dearest friends. 

We rode on past the Federal works into the winter-quarters 
of the army, — a city of huts, with streets regularly laid out, 
now deserted and in ruins. Here and there I noted an old- 
fashioned New-Ejigland well-sweep still standing. The line 
of works was semicu-cular, both ends resting on the river. 
Within that ox-bow was the encampment of the Army of the 
James. 

We next visited New-Market Heights, where Butler's col- 
ored regiments formed vmflinchingly under fire, and made 
their gallant charge, wiping out with their own blood the 
insults that had been heaped upon them by the white troops. 
" The army saw that charge, and it never insulted a .colored 
soldier after tliat," said the Major. 

We then galloped across the country, intending to strike 
Dutch Gap Canal. Not a habitation was in sight. Vast fields 
spread before us, and we rode through forests of weeds that 
overtopped our horses' heads. We became entangled in earth- 
works, and had to retrace our course. More than once we 
■were compelled to dismount and tear our way through abatis 
and chevaux-de-frize. Tlie result was, we lost our bearings, 
and, after riding several miles quite blindly, struck the James 
at Deep Bottom. Then up the river we galloped, traversing 
pine woods and weedy plains, avoiding marsh and gully, and 
leaping ditches, past Aiken's Landing, to a yellow elevation of 
earth across a narrow peninsula, which proved to be Dutch 
Gap. 



ORIGIN OF DUTCH GAP. 201 

The canal was there, — a short, deep channel connecting the 
river with the river again. Tlie James here describes a long 
loop, seven miles in extent, doubling back upon itself, so that 
you may stand on this high bank, and throw a stone either 
into the southward-flowing or the northward-returning stream. 
The canal, which cuts off these seven miles, is four hundred 
and eighty-six feet in length and fifty in depth from the sum- 
mit of the bank. It is one hundred and twenty-two feet broad 
at the top, forty at the bottom, and sixty-five at the high- 
water level. On the lower side the channel is deep enough 
for ships. Not so at the upper end, — the head that was 
blown out having fallen back and filled up the canal. At high 
water, however, small vessels sometimes get through. The 
tide had just turned, and we found a considerable body of 
water pouring through the Gap. 

Different accounts are given of the origin of the name of 
Dutch Gap. It is said that a Dutch company was once formed 
for digging a ship-canal at that place. But a better story is 
told of a Dutchman who made a bet with a Virginian, that 
he could beat him in a skiff-race between Richmond and City 
Point. The Virginian was ahead when they reached the Gap ; 
what then was his astonishment, on arriving at City Point, to 
find the Dutchman there before him. The latter had saved 
the roundabout seven miles by dragging his canoe across the 
peninsula and launching it on the other side. 

Riding up the Richmond road, we stopped at the first human 
habitation we had seen since leaving Laurel Hill. Wfe had 
been several hours in the saddle, and stood greatly in need of 
refreshments. The sight of a calf and a churn gave us a 
promise of milk, and we tied our horses at the door. The 
house had been a goodly mansion in its day, but now every- 
thing about it showed the ruin and dilapidation of war. The 
windows were broken, and the garden, out-houses, and fences 
destroyed. This proved to be Cox's house, and belonged to a 
plantation of twenty-three hundred acres which included 
Dutch Gap. Looking at the desolation which surrounded it, 
I could hardly believe that this had formerly been one of the 



202 FOETIFICATIONS. — FORT HARRISOX. 

finest farms in Virginia, -worked by a hundred negroes, and 
furnished with reapers, threshers, a grist-mill, and saw-mill, — 
all of which had been swept away as if they had never been. 

We found lying on a bed in a dilapidated room a poor man 
sick with the prevailing chills. He had some bread and milk 
brought for us, and gave us some useful hints about avoiding 
the torpedoes when we should reach Fort Harrison. He de- 
scribed to us the depredations committed on the place by " Old 
Butler " ; and related how he himself was once taken prisoner 
by the Yankee marines on the river. " They gave me my 
choice, — to be carried before the admiral, or robbed of my 
horse and all the money I had about me. I preferred the 
robbing ; so they cleared me out and set me free." 

I said, " If you had been taken before the admiral, you 
would have got your liberty and saved your property." 

His voice became deep and tremuloiis as he replied: "But 
I did n't consider horse nor money ; I considered my wife. I 'd 
sooner anything than that she should be distressed. She knew 
I Avas a pi'isoner, and all I thought of was to hurry home to 
her with the news that I was safe." Thus in every human 
breast, even though wrapped in rags, and guilty of ci-imes 
against country and kindred, abides the eternal spark of ten- 
derness which atones in the sight of God for all. 

Taking leave of the sick man, Ave })aid a brief visit to the 
casemates of Fort Harrison, then spurred back to Richmond, 
which we reached at sunset, having been nine hours in the 
saddle and ridden upwards of forty miles. 

Another morning, with two gentlemen of General Terry's 
staff, and an orderly to take care of our horses, I rode out of 
the city on the Nine .Mile Road, which crosses the Chicka- 
hominy at New Bridge ; purposing to visit some of the scenes 
of McClellan's Richmond campaign. 

Passing the fortifications, and traversing a level, scarcely 
inhabited country, shorn of its forests by the sickle of Avar, Ave 
reached, by a cross-road, the line of the Richmond and York 
River Railroad. But no railroad Avas there ; the iron of the 
track haying been taken up to be used elscAvhere. 



FAIR OAKS. 203 

Near by Avas Fair Oaks Station, surrounded by old fields, 
woods, and tracts of underbrush. Here was formerly a yard, 
in which stood a group of oaks, the lower trunks of which had 
been rendered conspicuous, if not beautiful, by whitewash: 
hence, '-'■fair oaks." 

It was a wild, windy, dusty day. A tempest was roaring 
through the pines over our heads as we rode on to the scene 
of General Casey's disaster. I asked an inhabitant why the 
place was called " Seven Pines." " I don't know, unless it 's 
because there 's about seven hundred." 

He w-as living in a little wooden house, close by a negro 
hut. " The Yankees took nie up, and carried me away, and 
destroyed all I had. My place don't look like it did before, 
and never will, I reckon. They come again last October; 
Old Butler's devils ; all colors ; heap of black troops ; they 
did n't leave me anything." 

He spoke with no more respect of the Confederates. " We 
had in our own army some of the durn'dest scapegalluses ! 
The difference 'twixt them and the Yankees was, the Yankees 
would steal before our eyes, and laugh at us ; but the Rebels 
would steal behind our backs." 

On the south, we found the woods on fire, with a furious 
north wind fanning the flames. The only human being we 
saw was a man digging sweet potatoes. We rode eastward, 
along the lines of intrenchments thrown up by our troops 
after the battle ; passed through a low, level tract of woods, 
on the borders of the Chickahominy swamps ; and, pressing 
northward, struck the Williamsburg Road. 

Colonel G , of our party, was in the Fair Oaks' fight. 

He came up with the victorious columns that tvirned back the 
tide of defeat. 

" I never saw a handsomer sight than Sickles's brigade ad- 
vancing up that road, Sunday morning, the second day of the 
battle. The enemy fired upon them from these woods, but 
never a man flinched. They came up in column, magnifi- 
cently, to that house yonder ; then formed in line of battle 
across these fields, and went in with flags flying and bayonets 



204 FORTIFICATIONS. 

shining, and drove the Rebels. After that we might have 
walked straight into Richmond, but McClellan had to stop 
and go to digfrino;." 

We dismounted in a sheltered spot, to examine our maps, 
then passed through the woods by a cross-road to Savage's 
Station, coming out upon a large undulating field. Of Sav- 
age's house only the foundations were left, surrounded by a 
grove of locust-trees. My companions described to me the 
scene of McClellan's retreat from this place, — the hurry, the 
confusion, the flames of government property abandoned and 
destroyed. Sutlers forsook their goods. Even the officers' 
baggage was devoted to the torch. A single pile of hard tack, 
measuring forty cubic feet, was set on fire, and burned. Then 
came the battle of Savage's Station, in which the corps of 
Franklin and Sumner, by determined fighting, saved our army 
from being overwhelmed by the entire Rebel force. This was 
Sunday again, the twenty-ninth of June : so great had been 
the change wrought by four short weeks ! On that other 
Sunday the Rebels were routed, and the campaign, as some 
aver, might have been gloriously ended by the capture of 
Richmond. Now nothing was left for us but ignominious 
retreat and failure, which proved all the more humiliating, 
falling so suddenly upon the hopes with which real or fancied 
successes had inspired the nation. 



PETERSBURG. 205 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

IN AND ABOUT PETEKSBUKG. 

On Wednesday, September 27th, I left Richmond for Pe- 
tersburg. The raih'oad bridge having been burned, I crossed 
the river in a coach, and took the cars at Manchester. A ride 
of twenty miles through tracts of weeds and undergrowth, 
pine barrens and oaken woods, passing occasionally a dreary- 
looking house and field of "sorry" corn, brought us within 
sight of the " Cockade City." ^ 

It was evening when I arrived. Having a letter from 
Governor Pierpoint to a prominent citizen, I sallied out by 
moonlight from my hotel, and picked my way, along the 
streets sloping up from the river bank, to his house. 

Judge received me in his library, and kept me until 

a late hour listening to him. His conversation was of the 
war, and the condition in which it had left the country. He 
portrayed the ruin of the once proud and prosperous State, 
and the sufferings of the people. " Yet, when all is told," 
said he, " you cannot realize their sufferings, more than if you 
had never heard of them." His remarks touching the freedmen 
were refreshing, after the abundance of cant on the subject 
to which I had been treated. He thought they were destined 
to be crowded out of Virginia, which was adapted to white 
labor, but that they would occupy the more southern States, 
and become a useful class of citizens. Many were leaving 
their homes, with the idea that they must do so in order fully 
to assert their freedom ; but the majority of them were still 
at work for their old masters. He was already convinced 
that the new system would prove more profitable to employers 

1 The title given to it by President Madison, in speaking of the gallantrj' of the 
Petersburg Volunteers, in the war of 1812. 



206 IIT AKD ABOUT PETERSBURG. 

than the old one. Formerly he kept eight family servants ; 
now he had but three, who, stimulated by wages, did the 
work of all. 

One of his former servants, to whom he had granted many 
privileges, came to him, after the war closed, and said, " You 
a'n't going to turn me away, I hope, master." 

" No, William," said the Judcre. " As lono; as I have a 
home, you have one. But I have no money to hire you." 

William replied that he would like to stay, and work riglit 
along just as he had done hitherto. " And as for money, 
master, I reckon we can manage that." 

« How so, William ? " 

" You see, master, you 've been so kind to me these past 
years I 've done a good deal outside, and if you have no money 
now, I reckon I must lend you some." 

The faithful fellow brought out his little treasure, and offered 
it to his old master, who, however, had not the heart to ac- 
cept it. 

The Judge also told a story of a free negro to whom he had 
often loaned money without security before the war. Recently 
this negro had come to him again, and asked the old question, 
" Have you plenty of money, master? " 

" Ah, James," said the Judge, " I used to have plenty, and 
I always gave you what you wanted, but you must go to some- 
body else now, for I have n't a dollar," 

" That 's what I was thinking," said James. " I have n't 
come to borrow this time, but to lend." And, taking out a 
fifty - dollar note, with tears in his eyes he entreated the 
Judge to take it. 

I noticed that the library had a new door, and that the walls 
around it were spotted with marks of repairs. " These are 
the effects of a shell that paid us a flying visit one morning, 
during the bombardment. Fortunately, no one was hurt." 

He accepted the results of the war in such a candid and 
loyal spirit as I had rarely seen manifested by the late govern- 
ing class in Virginia. If such men could be placed in power, 
the sooner the State were fully restored to its place in the 
Union, the better ; but, alas ! — 



BOMBARDMENT OF PETERSBURG. 207 

Returning- to the hotel, I missed my way, and seeing a light 
in a little grocery store, went in to make inquiries. I found 
two neo-roes talkino- over the bombardment. Findino; me a 
stranger, and interested, they invited me to stop, and rehearsed 
the story for my benefit. 

The shelling began on the first of July, 18G4. It was most 
rapitl on the third. Roofs and chimneys and walls were 
knocked to pieces. All the lower part of the town was de- 
serted. Many of the inhabitants fled to the country ; some 
remained there in camps, others got over their fright and re- 
turned. " We went up on Market Street, and got into a 
bonab-proof we made of cotton bales." The bombardment was 
kept up until the first of October, and afterwards resumed at 
intervals. " Finally people got so they did n't care anything 
about it. I saw two men killed by picking up shells and look- 
ing at them ; they exploded in their hands." 

At the time of the evacuation the negroes "had to keep 
right dark " to avoid being carried away by their masters. 
Some went across the Appomattox, and had to swim back, 
the bridcres beincr burned. 

They described to me the beauty of the scene when the 
mortars were playing in the night, and the heavens were 
spanned with arches of fire. 

" It was a right glad day for us when the Rebels "svent out 
and the Federals came in ; and I don't believe any of the 
people could say with conscientiousness they were sorry, — 
they had all suffered so much. The Rebels set all the tobacco- 
warehouses afire, and burned up the foundery and commissary 
stores. That was Sunday. Monday morning they went out, 
and the Federals came in, track after track, without an hour 
between them." 

These two negroes were brothers, and men of decided char- 
acter and intelligence, although they had been slaves all their 
lives. They learned to read in a spelling-book Avhen children 
by the firelight of their hut. " I noticed how white children 
called their letters ; and afterwards I learned to write without 
any showing, by copying the writing-letters in the spelling- 



208 IN AND ABOUT PETERSBURG. 

book. I learned to read in such a silent manner, it was a loncp 
time before I could make any head reading loud. I learned 
arithmetic by myself in the same way." 

If any person of white skin, who has risen to eminence, is 
known to have acquired the rudiments of education under 
such difficulties, much is made of the circumstance. But in 
the case of a poor black man, a slave, I suppose it is different. 

The two addressed each other with great respect and affec- 
tion. Their feeling of kinship and of family Avorth was very 
strong. " There were four brothers of us," said the elder ; 
" and I am the only one of them that ever went to the prison- 
house. After my old, kind master died, I had a difficulty 
with my mistress ; she was very exasperating in her language 
to me, till I lost my temper, and said I could live in torment, 
but I could n't live with her, and wished she would sell me. 
She sent for an officer : and I said, ' I am as willing to go 
to jail as I am to take a drink of water.' When the sheriff 
saw me, he was very much surprised, and he said, ' Why, 
John, why are you here ? ' I told him I had parted with my 
temper, and said what no man ought to have said to a woman. 
He said, ' What a pity ! such a name as your master gave you, 
John ! ' He interceded with my mistress, and the fourth day 
she had me taken out. I told her I had acknowledged my 
fault to my Maker, and I was wiUing to acknowledge it to 
her. She said she was wrong too ; and we agreed very well 
after that. I was a very valuable servant to her. I could 
wdiitewash, mend a fence, put in glass, use tools, serve up a 
dinner, and then wait on it as gracefully as any man that ever 
walked around a table. Then I would hitch up the carriage, 
and drive her out. And I liave never seen the day yet when 
she has given me five dollars." 

He had always thought deeply on the subject of his condition. 

" But I never felt at liberty to speak my mind until they 
passed an act to put colored men into the army. That wrought 
upon my feelings so I could n't but cry ; " and the tears were 
in his eyes again at the recollection. " They asked me if I 
would fight for my country. I said, ' I have no country.' 



PETERSBURG. 209 

They said I should fight for my freedom. I said, ' To gain 
my freedom, I must fight to keep my wife and children slaves.' 
Then, after the war was over, they told us they had no more 
use for niggers. I said I thought it hard, after they 'd lived 
by the sweat of our faces all our days, that now we must be 
banished from the country, because we were free." 

He spoke hopefully of his race. " If we can induce them 
to be united, and to feel the responsibility that rests upon 
them, they will get along very well. Many have bought 
themselves, and paid every dollar to their masters, and then 
been sold again, and been treated in this way till they have 
no longer any confidence in the promises a white man makes 
them. They won't stay with their old masters on any terms. 
Then there are some that expect to live Avithout work. There 
are some colored men, just as there are white men, that won't 
work to save their lives. Others won't stay, for this reason : 
The master takes their old daddy, and old mammy, and little 
children, and casts them out on the forks of the road, and tells 
them to go to the Court House, where the Yankees are, for 
he don't want 'em ; then of course the young men and young 
Avomen go too." 

Early next morning, I went out to view the town. In size 
and importance Petersburg ranks as the second city in the 
State. In 1860 it had 18,275 inhabitants. It had fifty man- 
ufacturing establishments in operation, employing three thou- 
sand operatives, and consuming annually $2,000,000 worth 
of raw material. Twenty factories manufactured yearly 
12,000,000 pounds of tobacco. The falls of the Appomattox 
afford an extensive water-power, and the river is navigable to 
this place. 

I found the city changed greatly from its old prosperous 
condition. Its business was shattered. Its well-built, pleasant 
streets, rising upon the south bank of the Appomattox, were 
dirty and dilapidated. All the lower part of the town showed 
the ruinous effect of the shelling it had received. Tenantless 
and uninhabitable houses, with broken walls, roofless, or with 
roofs smashed and torn by missiles, bear silent witness to the 
14 



210 IX AND ABOUT PETEESBUEG, 

havoc of war. In the ends of some buildings I counted more 
than twenty shot-holes. Many battered houses had been re- 
paired, — bright spots of new bricks in the old walls showing 
where projectiles had entered. 

The city was thronged by a superfluobs black population 
crowding in from the country. I talked with some, and tried 
to persuade them to go back and remain at their old homes. 
But they assured me that they could not remain : their very 
lives had been in danger ; and they told me of several murders 
perpetrated upon freedmen by the whites, in their neighbor- 
hoods, besides other atrocities. Yet it was evident many had 
come to town in the vague hope of finding happy adventures 
and bettering their condition. 

I remember a gang of men, employed by the government, 
waiting for orders, with their teams, on the sunny side of a 
ruined street. Several, sitting on the ground, had spelling- 
books : one was teaching another his letters ; a third was read- 
ing aloud to a wondering little audience ; an old man, in spec- 
tacles, with gray hair, was slowly and painfully spelling words 
of two letters, which he followed closely with his heavy dark 
finger along the sunlit page, — altogether a singular and affect- 
ing sio;ht. 

Having letters to General Gibbon commanding the military 
district, I called on him at his head-quarters in a fine modern 
Virginia mansion, and through his courtesy obtained a valu- 
able guide to the fortifications, in the person of Colonel E , 

of his staff. 

We drove out on the Jerusalem plank-road, leaving on our 
right the reservoir, which Kautz's cavalry in their dash at the 
city mistook for a fort, and retired from with commendable 
discretion. 

Leaving the plank-road, and striking across the open 
country, we found, in the midst of weedy fields, the famous 
" crater," — scene of one of the most fearful tragedies of the 
war. It was a huge irregular oblong pit, perhaps a hundred 
feet in length and twenty in depth. From this spot, spouted 
like a vast black fountain, from the earth, rose the garrison, 



WILD SPORT OF WARFARE. 211 

and guns, and breastworks, of one of the strongest Rebel 
forts, mined by our troops, and blown into the air on the 
morning of July 30th, 1864. 

There was a deep ravine in front, up in the side of which 
the mine had been worked. The mouth was still visible, half 
hidden by rank %veeds. In spots the surface earth had caved, 
leaving chasms opening into the mine along its course. The 
mouth of the Rebel counter-mine was also visible, — a deep, 
dark, narrow cavern, supported by framework, in the lower 
side of the crater. Lying around were relics of the battle, — 
bent and rusted bayonets, canteens, and fragments of shells. 
In front were the remains of wooden cJievaux-de-frise, which 
had been literally shot to pieces. And all around were 
graves. 

In the earthworks near by I saw a negro man and woman 
digging out bullets. They told me they got four cents a pound 
for them in Petersburg. It was hard work, but they made a 
living at it. 

Riding southward along the Confederate line of works, we 
came to Fort Damnation, where the Rebels used to set up a 
flag-staff for our boys to fire at with a six-pound Parrott gun, 
making a wild sport of warfare. Opposite was Fort Hell, 
built by our troops, and named in compliment to its profane 
neighbor. The intrenched picket-lines between the two were 
not more than seventy-five yards apart ; each connected with 
its fort by a covered way. These works were in an excellent 
state of preservation. Fort Hell especially, constructed with 
bomb-proofs and galleries which afforded the most ample pro- 
tection to its garrison, was in as perfect a condition as when 
first completed. With a lighted torch I explored its magazdne, 
a Tartarean cave, with deep dark chambers, and walls covered 
with a cold sweat. 

All along in front of the Rebel defences extended the 
Federal breastworks, and it was interesting to trace the zig- 
zag lines by which our troops had, slowly and persistently, by 
scientific steps, pushed their position ever nearer and nearer 
to the enemy's. Running round all, covered by an embank- 
ment, was Grant's army railroad. 



212 IN AND ABOUT PETEESBUEG. 

Havino; driven southward along the Rebel lines to Fort 
Damnation, and there crossed over to Fort Hell, we now 
returned northward, riding along the Federal lines. A very 
good corduroy road, built by our army, took us through de- 
serted villages of huts, where had been its recent winter- 
quarters ; past abandoned plantations and ruined dwellings ; 
over a plain which had been covered with forests before the war, 
but where not a tree was now standing ; and across the hue 
of the Norfolk Railroad, of which not a sleeper or rail re- 
mained. We passed Fort Morton, confronting the " crater " ; 
and halted on a hill, in a pleasant little grove of broken and 
dismantled oaks. Here were the earthworks and bomb-])roofs 
of Fort Stedman, the possession of which had cost more lives 
than any other point along the lines, not excepting the 
"crater." Captured originally from the Rebels, retaken by 
them, and recaptured by us, it was the subject of incessant 
warfare. 

At the Friend House, farther on, stationed on an eminence 
overlooking Petersburg, was the celebrated " Petersburg Ex- 
press," — the great gun which used to send its iron messengers 
regularly into the city. 

On the Friend Estate I saw, for the first time, evidences of 
reviving agriculture in this war-blasted region. A good crop 
of corn had been raised, and some five and thirty negro men 
and women were beginning the harvest. There was no white 
man about the place ; but they told me they were working on 
their own account for a portion of the crop. 

Returning to town by the City-Point Road, we set out again, 
in the afternoon, to visit the more distant fortifications beyond 
Forts Hell and Damnation. 

Driving out on the Boydton Plank Road to the Lead Works, 
we there left it on our right, and proceeded along a sandy 
track beside the Weldon Railroad where w'agon-loads of North 
Carolina cotton, laboring through the sand, attested that the 
damage done to this railroad, in December of tlie previous 
year, by Warren's Corps, — which destroyed with conscien- 



A BEAUTIFUL BUT SILENT CITY. 213 

tious tliorouglmcss fifteen miles of the track, — had not yet 
been repaired.^ 

Passing the Rebel forts, I was struck with the peculiar con- 
struction of the Federal works. As we pushed farther and 
farther our advanced lines around the city, tliey became so 
extended that, to prevent raids on our rear, it was neces- 
sary to construct rear lines of defence, Our intrenchments 
accordingly took the form of a hook, doubled backward, and 
terminating in something like a barbed point. 

Cities of deserted huts, built in the midst of a vast level 
plain, despoiled of its forests, showed where the winter-quarters 
of our more advanced corps had been, during this last great 
campaign. 

Passing the winter-quarters of the Sixth Corps, we ap- 
proached one of the most beautiful villages that ever were seen. 
It was sheltered by a grove of murmuring pines. An arched 
gateAvay admitted us to its silent streets. It was constructed 
entirely of pine saplings and logs. Even the neat sidewalks 
were composed of the same material. The huts — if those 
little dwellings, built in a unique and perfect style of architec- 
ture, may be called by that humble name — were furnished 
with bedrooms and mantel-pieces within, and plain columns 
and fluted pilasters without, all of rough pine. The plain 
columns were formed of single trunks, the fluted ones of 
clusters of saplings, — all with the bark on, of course. The 
walls were similarly constructed. The village was deserted, 
with the exception of a safeguard, consisting of half a dozen 
United States soldiers, stationed there to protect it from van- 
dalism. 

The gem of the place was the church. Its walls, pillars, 
pointed arches, and spire, one hundred feet high, were com- 
posed entirely of pines selected and arranged with surprising 
taste and skill. The pulpit was in keeping with the rest. 
Above it was the following inscription : — 

" Presented to the members of the Poplar Sjiring Church, 

1 Four months later I returned northward from the Carolinas by this road, and 
found that the bent rails had been straightened and replaced, ii^an exceedingly scaly 
condition. 



214 IN AXD ABOUT PETERSBUEG. 

by the 50th N. Y. V. Engineers. Capt. M. H. McGrath, 
architect." 

The Poplar Spring Church, which formerly stood some- 
where in that vicinity, had been destroyed during the war ; 
and this church had been left as a fitting legacy to its congre- 
gation by the soldiers who built it. The village had been the 
winter-quarters of the engineer corps. 

Driving westward along the track of the army railroad, and 
past its termination, we struck across the open fields to the 
Federal signal-tower, lifting skyward its lofty open framework 
and dizzy platforms, in the midst of an extensive plain. To 
ascend a few stages of this breezy observatory, and see the sun 
go down behind the distant dim line of forests, while the 
evening shadows thickened upon the landscape, was a fit 
termination to the day's experience ; and we returned with 
rapid wheels to the city. 



LANDMAKKS OF RECENT FAMOUS EVENTS. 215 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

JAMES RIVER AND FORTRESS MONROE. 

The next day I proceeded to City Point by railroad, — 
riding in an old patclied-up car marked outside " U. S. Military 
R. i?.," and furnished inside with pine benches for seats and 
boards nailed up in place of windows. There was nothing of 
interest on the road, which passed through a region • of stumps 
and undergrowth, with scarce an inhabitant, save the few ne- 
gro families that had taken up their abode in abandoned army 
huts. City Point itself was no less dull. Built on high and 
rolling ground, at the confluence of the Appomattox and the 
James, — a fine site for a village, — it had nothing to show 
but an ugly cluster of rough wooden buildings, such as spring 
up like fungus in the track of an army, and a long line of gov- 
ernment warehouses by the river. 

I took the first steamer for Richmond ; returning thence, in 
a few days, down the James to Norfolk and Fortress Monroe. 
This voyage possesses an interest which can merely be hinted 
at in a description. You are gliding between shores rich with 
historical associations old and new. The mind goes back to 
the time when Captain John Smith, with the expedition of 
1607, sailed up this stream, which they named in honor of 
their king. But you are diverted from those recollections by 
the landmarks of recent famous events : — the ruins of iron- 
clads below Richmond ; the wrecks of gunboats ; obstructions 
in the channel; Fort Darling, on a high bluff'; every com- 
manding eminence crowned by a redoubt ; Dutch Gap Canal ; 
Deep Bottom ; Butler's tower of observation ; Malvern Hill, 
where the last battle of McClellan's retreat was fought, — a gen- 
tle elevation on the north bank, marked by a small house and 
clumps of trees ; Harrison's Landing, — a long pier extending 



216 JAMES RIVEE AND FORTRESS MONROE. 

out into the river ; Jamestown, the first settlement in Virginia, 
— now an island with a few huts only, and two or three 
chimney-stacks of burnt houses, — looking as desolate as when 
first destroyed, at the time of Bacon's rebellion, near two 
hundred years ago ; Newport News below, a place with a few 
shanties, and a row of grinning batteries ; Hampton Roads, 
bristling and animated with shipping, — the scene of the fight 
between the " Merrimac " and the " Monitor," initiating a 
new era in naval warfare ; Hampton away on the north, with 
its conspicuous square white hospital ; Norfolk on the south, 
up the Elizabeth River ; the Rip- Raps, and Sewall's Point ; 
and, most astonishing object of all, that huge finger of the 
military power, placed here to hold these shores, — Fortress 
Monroe. 

It was a wild, windy day ; the anchored ships were tossing 
on the white-capped waves ; but the Fortress presented a beau- 
tiful calm picture, as we approached it, with its proud flag 
careering in the breeze, its white light-house on the beach, 
and the afternoon sunshine on its broad walls and grassy ram- 
parts. 

Before the war, there was a large hotel between the Fortress 
and the wharves, capable of acconmiodating a thousand ])er- 
sons. This was torn down, because it obstructed the range 
of the guns ; and a miserable one-and-a-half story dining- 
saloon had been erected in its place. Here, after much per- 
suasion, I managed to secure a lodging under the low, unfin- 
ished roof. The proprietor told me that the government, 
which owns the land on which his house stands, exacted no 
payment for it, under General Dix's administration ; but that 
General Butler, on coming into power, immediately clapped 
on a smart rent of five hundred dollars a month, Avhicli the 
landlord could pay, or take his house elsewhere. I thought 
the circumstance characteristic. 

The next morning, having a letter to General Miles, in 
command at the Fortress, I obtained admission within the 
massy walls. I crossed the moat on the drawbridge, and 
entered the gate opening under the heavy bastions. I found 



ARNOLD'S PURPOSE. 217 

myself in the midst of a village, on a level plain, sluulod by 
trees. A guard was given me, with orders to show me what- 
ever I wished to see, with one exception, — the interior of Mr. 
Jeftorson Davis's private residence. This retired Rebel chief 
had been removed from the casemate in Avhich he was origi- 
nally confined, and was occupying Carrol Hall, a plain, three- 
story, yellow-painted building, built for officers' quarters. I 
walked past the doors, and looked up at the modest window- 
curtains, wondering what his thoughts were, sitting there, 
meditating his fallen fortunes, with the flag of the nation he 
had attempted to overthrow floating above his head, and its 
cannon frowning on the ramparts around him. Did he enjoy 
his cigar, and read the morning newspaper with interest ? 

The strength and vastness of Fortress Monroe astonishes 
one. It is the most expensive fortress in the United States, 
having cost nearly two and a half million dollars. It is a mile 
around the ramparts. The walls are fifty feet thick. The 
stone masonry which forms their outward face rises twenty 
feet above high-water mark in the moat ; and the grassy par- 
apets are built ten feet higher. There were only seven hun- 
dred men in the fort, — a small garrison. 

I was shown the great magazine which Arnold, one of the 
Booth conspirators, proposed to blow up. His plan was to get 
a clerkship in the ordnance office, which would affi3rd him 
facilities for carrying out his scheme. Had this succeeded, 
the terrible explosion that would have ensued would not only 
have destroyed the Fortress, but not a building on the Point 
would have been left standing. 

I made the circuit of the ramparts, overlooking Hampton 
Roads on one side, and the broad bay on the other. The sun 
was shining ; the waves were breaking on the shore ; the band 
was playing proud martial airs ; the nation's flag rolled 
voluptuously in the wind ; steamers and white-sailed ships 
were going and coming ; the sky above was of deep blue, full 
of peace. It was hard to realize that the immense structure 
on which I walked, amid such a scene, was merely an engine 
of war. 



218 JAMES KIVER AND FORTRESS MONROE. 

While 1 was at General Miles's head-quarters an interesting 

case of pardoned rebellion was developed. Mr. Y , a 

noted secessionist of Warwick County, was one of those who 
had early pledged his life, his fortune, and his sacred honor to 
the Confederate cause. He had commenced his patriotic 
service by seizing at his wharf on the Warwick River a pri- 
vate vessel which happened to be loading with lumber at the 
time when the State seceded, and sending her as a prize up 
to Richmond; and he had crowned his career by assisting 
Wirz in his official work at Andersonville. During the war 
the government against which he was fighting had taken th 
liberty of cutting a little lumber on this gentleman's abandoned 
lands. He had since become professedly loyal, paid a visit to 
the ffood President at Washington, and returned to his estates 
with his pardon in his pocket. The first thing he did was to 
drive off the government contractor's employees with threats 
of violence. He would not even allow them to take away the 
government property he found on his place, but thretitened to 
shoot every man who approached for that purpose. An officer 
came to head-quarters, when I was there, requesting a guard 
of soldiers to protect the lives of the laborers during the re- 
moval of this property. 



VILLAGE OF HAMPTON. 219 



CHAPTER XXIX. -^ 

ABOUT HAMPTON. 

As it was my intention to visit some of the freedmen's 
settlements in the vicinity, the General kindly placed a horse 
at my disposal, and I took leave of him. A short gallop 
brought me to the village of Hampton, distant from the Fortress 
something over two miles. 

" The village of Hampton," says a copy of the " Richmond 
Examiner " for 1861, " is beautifully situated on an arm of the 
sea setting in from the adjacent roadstead which bears its name. 
The late census showed that the ao-crreo-ate white and black 
population was nearly two thousand." Some of the residences 
were of brick, erected at a heavy cost, and having large gardens, 
out-houses, and other valuable improvements. The oldest 
building, and the second oldest church in the State, was the 
Episcopal Church, made of imported brick, and surrounded 
by a cemetery of ancient graves. " Here repose the remains 
of many a cavalier and gentleman, whose names are borne by 
numerous families all over the Southern States." 

On the night of August 7th, 1861, the Rebels, under 
General Magruder, initiated what has been termed the " M^ar- 
fare against women and children and private property," which 
has marked the war of the Rebellion, by laying this old aristo- 
cratic town in ashes. It had been mostly abandoned by the 
secessionist inhabitants on its occupation by our troops, and 
only a few white families, with between one and two hundred 
negroes, remained. Many of the former residents came back 
with the Rebel troops and set fire to their own and their 
neighbors' houses. Less than a dozen buildings remained 
standing ; the place being reduced to a wilderness of naked 
chimneys, burnt-out shells, and heaps of ashes. 



220 ABOUT HAMPTON. 

I found it a thrifty village, occupied chiefly by freedmen. 
The former aristocratic residences had been replaced by negro 
huts. These were very generally built of split boards, called 
pales, overlapping each other like clapboards or shingles. 
There was an air of neatness and comfort about them which 
surprised me, no less than the rapidity with which they were 
constructed. One man had just completed his house. He 
told me that it took him a Aveek to make the pales for it and 
bring them from the woods, and four days more to build it. 

A sash-factory and blacksmith's shop, shoemakers' shops 
and stores, enlivened the streets. The business of the place 
was carried on chiefly by freedmen, many of whom were 
becoming wealthy, and paying heavy taxes to the govern- 
ment. 

Every house had its wood-pile, poultry and pigs, and little 
garden devoted to corn and vegetables. Many a one had its 
stable and cow, and horse and cart. The village was sur- 
rounded by freedmen's farms, occupying the abandoned plan- 
tations of recent Rebels. The crops looked well, though the 
soil was said to be poor. ^ Indeed, this was by fl\r the thriftiest 
portion of Virginia I had seen. 

In company with a gentleman who was in search of laborers, 
I made an extensive tour of these farms, anxious to see with 
my own eyes what the emancipated blacks were doing for 
themselves. I fovind no idleness anywhere. Happiness and 
industry were the universal rule. I conversed with many of 
the people, and heard their simple stories. They had but one 
trouble : the owners of the lands they occupied were coming 
back with their pardons and demanding the restoration of 
their estates. Here they had settled on abandoned Rebel 
lands, under the direction of the government, and with the 
government's pledge, given through its oflicers, and secured 
by act of Congress, that they should be protected in the use and 
enjoyment of those lands for a term of three years, each freed- 
man occupying no more than forty acres, and paying an annual 
rent to government not exceeding six per cent, of their value. 
Here, under the shelter of that promise, they had built their 



INJUSTICE TO FREEDMEN. 221 

little houses and established their humble homes. What Avas 
to become of them ? On one estate of six lunidred acres 
there was a thriving community of eight hundred freedmen. 
The owner had been pardoned unconditionally by the Presi- 
dent, who, in his mercy to one class, seemed to forget what 
justice was due to another. 

The terms which some of these returning Rebels proposed 
to the freedmen they found in possession of their lands, in- 
terested me. One man, whose estate was worth sixteen 
dollars an acre, offered to rent it to the families living on it for 
eight dollars an acre, provided that the houses, which they 
had themselves built, should I'evert to him at the end of the 
year. 

My friend broke a bolt in his buggy, and we stopped at a 
blacksmith-shop to get another. While the smith, a negro, 
was making a new bolt, and fitting it neatly to its place, I 
questioned him. He had a little lot of half an acre ; upon 
which he had built his own house and shop and shed. He had 
a family, which he was supporting without any aid from the 
government. He was doing very well until the owner of the 
soil appeared, with the President's pardon, and orders to have 
his property restored to him. The land was worth twenty 
dollars an acre. He told the blacksmith that he could remain 
where he was, by paying twenty-four dollars a year rent for 
his half acre. " I am going to leave," said the poor man, 
quietly, and without uttering a complaint. 

Except on the government farm, where old and infirm per- 
sons and orphan children were placed, I did not find anybody 
who was receiving aid from the government. Said one, " I 
have a family of seven children. Four are my own, and three 
are my brother's. I have twenty acres. I get no help from 
government, and do not want any as long as I can have land." 
I stopped at another little farm-house, beside which was a 
large pile of wood, and a still larger heap of urdiusked corn, 
two farm wagons, a market wagon, and a pair of mules. The 
occupant of this place also had but twenty acres, and he was 
"getting rich." 



222 ABOUT HAMPTON. 

" Has government helped you any this year ? " I asked a 
young fellow we met on the road. 

" Government helped mef'' he retorted proudly. "No; I 
am helping government." 

We stopped at a little cobbler's shop, tlie proprietor of 
which was supporting not only his own wife and cliildren, but 
his aged mother and widowed sister. " Has government 
helped you any ? " we inquired. *' Nary lick in the world ! " 
he replied, hammering away at his shoe. 

Driving across a farm, we saw an old negro without legs 
hitching along on his stumps in a cornfield, pulling out grass 
between the rows, and making it up into bundles to sell. He 
hailed us, and wished to know if we wanted to buy any hay. 
He seemed delighted when my companion told him he would 
take all he had, at his own price. He said he froze his legs 
one winter when he was a slave, and had to have them taken 
off in consequence. Formerly he had received rations from 
the government, but now he was earning his own support, ex- 
cept what little he received from his friends. 

It was very common to hear of families that were helping 
not only their own relatives, but others who had no such claim 
of kindred upon them. And here I may add that the account 
which these people gave of themselves was fully corroborated 
by officers of the government and others who knew them. 

My friend did not succeed very well in obtaining laborers 
for his mills. The height of the freedmen's ambition was to 
have little homes of their own and to work for themselves. 
And who could blame this simple, strong instinct, since it was 
not only pointing them the way of their own prosperity, but 
serving also the needs of the country ? ^ 

Notwithstanding the pending difficulty with the land- 
owners, those who had had their lots assigned them were 
going on to put up new houses, from which they might be 

1 For example : the freedmen on the Jones Place, with one hundred and twenty 
acres under cultivation, where they had commenced work with nothing for which 
they did not have to run in debt, were now the owners of both stock and farming 
unplcraents ; and, besides supportmg their families, they were paying to the United 
States a large annual rent. 



PROTECTION OF THE FREEDMEN. 223 

driven at any day, — so great was their faith in the lienor of 
the government which had ah'eady done so much for them. 

Revisiting Virginia some months later, I learned that the 
Fi*eedmen's Bureau had interposed to protect these people in 
their rights, showing that their faith had not been in vain. 



224 A GENERAL VIEW OF VIRGINIA. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

A GENERAL VIEW OF VIRGINIA. 

Called home from Fortress Monroe by an affiiir of business 
requiring my attention, I resumed my Southern tour later in 
the fall, passing through Central and Southwestern Virginia, 
and returning from the Carolinas throuo-h Eastern Virginia in 
the following February. I am warned by a want of space to 
omit the details of these transient journeys, and to compress 
my remaining notes on the State into as narrow a compass as 
possible.^ 

Virginia was long a synonym for beauty and fertility. In 
the richness of her resources, she stood unrivalled among the 
earlier States. In wealth and population, she led them all. 
She was foremost also in j^olitical power ; and the names she 
gave to our Revolutionary history still sparkle as stars of the 
first magnitude. 

This halo about her name has been slow to fade ; although, 
like, a proud and indolent school-girl, once at the head of her 
class, she has been making steady progress towards the foot. 
Five of the original States have gone above her, and one by 
one new-comers are fast overtaking her. Little Massachusetts 
excels her in wealth, and Ohio in both wealth and population. 

The causes of this gradual falling back are other than phys- 
ical causes. Her natural advantages have not been overrated. 
The Giver of good iiifts has been munificent in his bounties 
to her. She is rich in rivers, forests, mines, soils. That 
broad avenue to the sea, the Chesapeake, and its afiluents, 
solicit commerce. Her supply of water-power is limitless and 

^ West Virginia, which seceded from the State after the State seceded from the 
Union, and which now forms a separate sovereignty under the National Government, 
I can scarcel}' say that I visited. I saw but the edges of it; it is touched upon, there- 
fore, only in the general remarks which follow. 



FERTILITY OF THE STATE. 225 

well distributed. She possesses a variety of climate, which is, 
with few exceptions, healthful and delightful. 

The fertility of the State is perhaps hardly equal to its fine 
reputation, which, like that of some old authors, was acquired 
in the freshness of her youth, and before her powerful young 
competitors appeared to challenge the world's attention. Such 
reputations acquire a sanctity from age, which the spirit of 
conservatism permits not to be questioned. 

The State has many rich valleys, river bottoms, and alluvial 
tracts bordering on lesser streams, which go far towards sus- 
tainincT this venerable reputation. But between these valleys 
occur intervals of quite ordinary fertility, if not absolute steril- 
ity, and these compose the larger portion of the State. Add 
the fact that the best lands of Eastern and Southeastern Vir- 
ginia have been very generally worn out by improper cultiva- 
tion, and what is the conclusion ? 

A striking feature of the country is its " old fields." The 
more recent of these are usually found covered with briers, 
weeds, and broom-sedge, — often with a thick growth of in- 
fant pines coming up like grass. Much of the land devastated 
by the war lies in this condition. In two or three years, these 
voung pines shoot up their green plumes five or six feet high. 
In ten years there is a young forest. In some of the oldest 
of the old fields, now heavily timbered, the ridges of the an- 
cient tobacco lands are traceable among the trees. 

Tobacco has been the devouring enemy of the country. In 
travelling through it one is amazed at the thought of the re- 
gions which have been burned and chewed up by the smokers 
and spitters of the world. 

East Virginia is hilly. The southeast portion of the State 
is undulating, Avitli occasional plains, and swamps of formidable 
extent. The soil of the tide-water districts is generally a hght 
sandy loam. A belt of mountain ranges, a hundred miles in 
breadth, runs in a northeast and southwest direction across the 
State, enclosing some of its richest and loveliest portions. The 
Valley of Virginia, — as that fertile stripe is called lying Avest 
of the Blue Ridge, drained by the Shenandoah and the head- 
is 



226 A GENERAL VIEW OF VIRGINIA 

"waters of the James, — is fitly called the granary of the State. 
It is a limestone region, admirably adapted for grains and 
grazing. The virginity of its soil has not been polluted by 
tobacco. 

In 1860 there were in the State less than eleven and a half 
million acres of improved land, out of an area of near forty 
millions. Over thirteen million bushels of wheat were pro- 
duced ; one million of rye, Indian corn, and oats ; one hun- 
dred and twenty-four million pounds of tobacco ; twelve thou- 
sand seven hundred and twenty-seven bales of cotton ; and 
two and a half million pounds of wool (in round numbers). 
There were four thousand nine hundred manufacturing estab- 
lishments, the value of whose manufactux'es was fifty-one million 
three hundred thousand dollars. There were thirteen cotton 
factories, running twenty-eight thousand seven hundred spin- 
dles. The most important article of export before the war 
was negroes. There were sold out of the State annually 
twenty thousand.^ 

With the exception of the last-named staple, these annual 
productions are destined to be multiplied indefinitely by a 
vigorous system of free labor and the introduction of Northern 
caj)ital. The worn-out lands can be easily restored by the 
application of marl and gypsum, with which the State abounds, 
and of other natural fertilizers. The average value of land, 
in 1850, was eight dollars an acre ; while that of New Jersey, 
which never bragged of its fertility, was forty-four dollars. 
The former price will now buy lands in almost any section of 
Virginia except the Shenandoah Valley ; while there is no 
question but that they can be raised to the latter price, and 
beyond, in a very few years, by judicious cultivation, united 
with such internal improvements as are indispensable to make 
the wealth of any region available. 

Still greater inducements are presented to manufacturers than 

1 In 1850, the number of slave-owners in the State was 55,063. Of these 11,385 
owned one slave each; 15,550, more than one and less than 5; 13,030, more than 5 
and less than 10; 9,456, more than 10 and less than 20; 4,880, more than 20 and less 
than 50; 646, more than 50 and less than 100; 107, over 100 and less than 200; 8, 
over 200 and less than 300; and 1, over 300. 



PRODUCTS OF VIRGINIA. 227 

to farmers. To largo capitalists, looking to establish extensive 
cotton-mills, I do not feel myself competent to offer any sug- 
gestions. But of small manufactures I can speak with confi- 
dence. Take the Shenandoah Valley for example. The wool 
that is raised there is sent North to be manufactured, and 
brought back in the shape of clothing, having incurred the 
expense of transportation both ways, and paid the usual tariff 
to traders through wdiose hands it has passed. The Valley 
abounds in iron ore of the best quality ; and it imports its 
kettles and stoves. The same may be said of nearly all agri- 
cultural implements. The freight on many of these imports 
is equal to their original cost. It was said before the war that 
scarce a wagon, clock, broom, boot, shoe, coat, rake or spade, 
or piece of earthen ware, was used in the South, that was 
not manufactured at the North ; and the same is substantially 
true to-day, notwithstanding the change in this particular 
which the w^ar was supposed to have effected. Let any enter- 
prising man, or company of men, with sufficient experience 
for the work and capital to invest, go into Virginia, make use 
of the natural water-power which is so copious that no special 
price is put upon it, and manufacture, of the materials that 
abound on the spot, articles that are in demand there, estab- 
lishing a judicious system of exchange, and who can doubt the 
result, now that the great obstacle in the way of such under- 
takings, slavery, has been removed ? 

In speaking of the products of Virginia, we should not 
forget its oysters ; of which near fourteen and a half million 
bushels, valued at four million eight hundred thousand dollars, 
were sent from Chesapeake Bay in one year, previous to the 
war. 

Virginia never had any common-school system. One third 
of her adult population can neither read nor write. There 
was a literary fund, established to promote the interests of 
education, which amounted, in 1861, to something over two 
millions of dollars ; but it was swallowed by the Avar. At the 
present timft^ the prospect for white common schools in the 
State is discouraging. The only one I heard of in anything 



228 A GENERAL VIEW OF VIRGINIA. 

like a flourishing condition was a school for poor whites, estab- 
lished by the Union Commission in the buildings of the Confed- 
erate naval laboratory, at Richmond. It numbers five lum- 
dred pupils, and is taught by experienced teachers from the 
North. The prospect is better for the education of the freed- 
men. There were in the State last winter ninety freedmen's 
schools, with an aggregate of eleven thousand five luuidred 
pupils. There were two hundred teachers ; twenty-five of 
whom were colored men and women at the head of self-sup- 
porting schools of their own race. The remaining schools, 
taught by experienced individuals from the North, were sup- 
ported mainly by the following benevolent associations : The 
New- York National Freedmen's Relief; American Mission- 
ary ; Pennsylvania Freedmen's Relief; Baptist Home Mis- 
sion ; New-England Freedmen's Aid ; and Philadelphia 
Friends' Freedmen's Relief. 

The opposition manifested by a large class of whites to the 
establishment of these schools was at first intense and bitter. 
It had nearly ceased, — together with the outrages on freed- 
men, which had been frequent, — when, on the removal of 
the troops from certain localities,^ it recommenced, and Avas, at 
my last visit, fearfully on the increase. Teachers were threat- 
ened and insulted, and school-houses broken into or burned. 
The better class of citizens, — many of whom see the neces- 
sity of educating the negro now that he is free, — while they 
have nothing to do with these acts of barbarism, are powerless 
to prevent them. The negro-haters are so strong an element 
in every society that they completely shield the wrong-doers 
from the reach of civil law. 

The great subject of discussion among the people every- 
where was the "niggers." Only a minority of the more en- 
lightened class, out of their large hearts and clear heads, spoke 
of them kindly and dispassionately. The mass of the people, 
including alike the well-educated and the illiterate, generally 
detested the negroes, and wished every one of them driven 
out of the State. The black man was well enough as a slave ; 
1 In February, 1866, there were but 2500 troops left in the State. 



PRIVATE LEAGUES AGAINST THE FllEEDMEN. 229 

but even those who rejoiced that slavery was no more, desired 
to get rid of him along with it. When he was a chattel, like 
a horse or dog, he was commonly cherished, and sometimes 
even loved like a favorite horse or dog, and there was not a 
particle of prejudice against him on account of color ; but the 
master-race could not forgive him for being free ; and that he 
should assume to be a man, self-owning and self-directing, was 
intolerable. I simply state the fact ; I do not condemn any- 
body. That Such a feeling should exist is, I know, the most 
natural thing in the world ; and I make all allowances for 
habit and education. 

It is this feeling which makes some protection on the part 
of the government necessary to the negro in his new condi- 
tioufc The Freedmen's Bureau stands as a mediator between 
him and the race from whose absolute control he has been too 
recently emancipated to expect from it absohite justice. The 
belief inheres in the minds of the late masters, that they have 
still a right to appropriate his labor. Although we may acquit 
them of intentional wrong, it is impossible not to see how far 
their conduct is from right. 

Before the war, it Avas customary to pay for ordinary able- 
bodied plantation slaves, hired of their masters, at rates vary- 
ing from one hundred and ten to one hundred and forty dollars 
a year for each man, together with food, clothing, and medical 
attendance. After the war, the farmers in many counties of 
Virginia entered into combinations, pledging themselves to 
pay the freed slave only sixty dollars a year, exclusive of 
clothing and medical attendance, Avith Avhich he Avas to fur- 
nish himself out of such meagre Avages. They also engaged 
not to hire any freedman Avho had left a former employer 
without his consent. These Avere private leagues instituting 
measures similar to those Avhich South Carolina and some other 
States afterwards enacted as laAvs, and haA'ing in a'Icav the same 
end, namely, — to hold the negro in the condition of abject de- 
pendence from Avhich he Avas thought to have been emancipated. 

That the freedman's supposed unAvillingness to Avork, and 
the employer's poverty occasioned by the Avar, Avere not the 



230 A GENERAL VIEW OF VIRGINIA. 

reasons why lie was to be paid less than half the wages he 
earned when hired out as a slave, I had abundant evidence. 
One illustration will suffice. Visiting the tobacco flictories 
of Riclunond, I found them worked entirely by freedmen 
under white superintendents. I never saw more rajnd labor 
performed with hands than the doing up of the tobacco in rolls 
for the presses ; nor harder labor with the muscles of the 
whole body than the working of the presses. The superin- 
tendents told me they had difficulty in procuring operatives. 
I inquired if the freedmen were well paid ; and was informed 
that good workmen earned a dollar and a half a day. 

" If the negroes will not engage in the business, why not 
employ white labor ? " 

" We tried that years ago, and it would n't answer. White 
men can't stand it ; they can't do the work. This press- 
work is a dead strain ; only the strongest niggers are up to it." 

Those putting up the tobacco in rolls, — three ounces in 
each, though they rarely stopped to place one on the scales, 
— showed a skill which could have resulted only from years 
of practice. I learned, from conversing Avith them, that they 
were dissatisfied with their pay ; and the superintendents ad- 
mitted that, while the negroes worked as well as ever, labor 
was much cheaper than formerly. On further investigation 
I ascertained that a combination between the manufacturers 
kept the wages down ; that each workman had to employ a 
" stemmer," who made the tobacco ready for his hands ; and 
that his earnings were thus reduced to less than five dollars a 
week, out of which he had himself and his family to support.^ 

1 After my visit to the tobacco factories, the following statement, drawn up for the 
colered workmen by one of their number, was placed in my hands by a gentleman 
who vouched for its truthfulness. I print it verbatim: — 

Richmond September 18, 1865 Dear Sirs We the Tobacco mechanicks of this city 
and Manchester is worked to great disadvantage In 1858 and 1859 our masters hiered 
us to the Tobacconist at a prices ranging from $150 to 180. The Tobacconist fur- 
nished us lodging food & clothing. They gave us tasks to performe. all we made 
over this task they payed us for. We worked faithful and they paid us faithful. They 
Then gave us $2 to 2.50 cts, and we made double the amount we now make. The 
Tobacconist held a meeting, and resolved not give more than $1.50 cts per hundred, 
which is about one days work — in a week we may make 600 lbs apece with a stemer. 
The weeks work then at $1.50 amounts to $9 — the stemers wages is from $i to $4.50 



THE WORK OF THE FREEDMEN'S BUREAU. 231 

The Bureau labored to break up these combinations, and to 
secure for the freedmen all the rights of freemen. Colonel 
Brown, the Assistant-Commissioner for Virginia, divided the 
State into districts, and assigned a superintendent to each. 
The districts were subdivided into sub-districts, for which 
assistant superintendents were appointed. Thus the Bureau's 
mfluence was felt more or less throughout the State. It as- 
sisted the freedmen in obtaining employment, regulated con- 
tracts, and secured to them fair Avages. It had a general 
superintendence of freedmen's schools. It used such powers 
as it possessed to scatter the negroes, whom the exigencies of 
the war had collected together in great numbers at places 
where but few could hope for employment. It fed the desti- 
tute, the aged, the orphan, the infirm, and such as were 
unable to find work, — who, in that period of transition, must 
have perished in masses without such aid. It hkewise estab- 
lished courts for the trial of minor cases of litigation or crime 
in which persons of color Avere concerned. Each court was 
originally presided over by an officer of the Bureau ; but in 
order to secure impartial justice to all, there were associated 
with him two agents, one chosen by the citizens of the sub- 
district in which it Avas located, and the other by the freed- 
men. 

There is in every community a certain percentage of its 
members that look to set a living without honest toil. I am 
not aware that the negro has any more love for work than 
another man. Coming into the enjoyment of freedom before 
they knew what freedom meant, no wonder that many should 
have regarded life henceforth as a Christmas frolic. The system 

cts which leaves from $5 to 4-50 cts per week about one half what we made when 
slaves. Now to Eent two small rooms we have to pay from $18 to 20. We see 
$4.50 cts or $5 will not more then pay Rent say nothing about food Clothing med- 
icin Doctor Bills. Tax and Co. They say we will starve through lazincs that is 
not so. But it is true we will starve at our present wages. They say we will steal 
ue can say for ourselves we had rather work for our living, give us a Chance. 
We are Compeled to work for them at low ws.ges and pay high Rents and make $5 
per week and sometimes les. And paying $18 or 20 per month Rent. It is impos- 
sible to feed ourselves and family — starvation is Cirten unles a change is brought 
about 

Tobacco Factory Mechanicks of Richmond and Manchester. 



} f 



232 A GENERAL VIEW OF VIRGINIA. 

which had held them in bondage had kept them ignorant. 
Having always been provided for by their masters, they were 
as improvident as children. They believed that the govern- 
ment which had been their Liberator would like-^ase be their 
Provider : the lands of their Rebel masters were to be given 
them, and their future was to be licensed and joyous. They 
had the vices of a degraded and enslaved race. They would 
lie and steal and shirk their tasks. Their pleasures were of 
a sensuous character; even their religion was sensuous; the 
sanctity of the marriage-tie, so long subject to the caprices 
of the master-race, was lightly esteemed. Under these cir- 
cumstances the proportion of those who have shown a per- 
sistent determination to lead lives of vice and vagrancy, 
appears to me surprisingly small. Their number still de- 
creases as their enlightenment increases. The efforts of the 
Freedmen's Bureau, and Northern missionary and educa- 
tional labors among them, have contributed greatly towards 
this desirable result. Still more might be done if additional 
discretionary powers were granted the Assistant-Commis- 
sioner. Vagrants, wdiether white or black, should be treated 
as vagrants ; and I thought it would have been a wholesome 
measure for the Bureau to make contracts for those freedmen 
who refused to make contracts for themselves, and were with- 
out any visible means of support. 

There ai'e in Virginia half a million negroes. Those appear 
most thriving and happy who are at work for themselves. I 
have described the freedmen's farms about Hampton. In 
other portions of Southeast Virginia, where the Federal influ- 
ence has been longest felt, they are equally industrious and 
prosperous. Captain Flagg, the superintendent at Norfolk, 
whose district comprises seven counties, told me that he was 
not issuing rations to a hundred persons, besides orphan chil- 
dren. In Northampton and Accomack counties every negro 
\ owns his boat, and earns with it three dollars a day at oyster- 
ing, in the oyster season. There are perhaps eighteen thou- 
sand freedmen in those counties, all engaged in oystering, 
fishing, and the cultivation of lands which they own or hire. 



LEGISLATIVE AND LOCAL AFFAIRS. 233 

In Norfolk, Princess Anne, and other counties adjacent, 
planters were very generally renting or selling lands to the 
freedmen, who were rapidly becoming a respectable, solid, tax- 
paying class of people. Many colored soldiers Avere coming 
back and buying small farms with money earned in the service 
of the government. Captain Flagg, a man of sense and dis- 
cretion, said to me deliberately, and gave me leave to publish 
the statement : — 

" I believe the negro population of the seven counties of my 
district will compare fiivorably, in respect to industry and 
thrift, with any laboring white population of similar resources 
at the North." Adding, " I beheve most thoroughly in the 
ability of these people to get a living even where a white man 
would starve." 

The freedmen in other parts of the State were not doing as 
well, being obliged generally to enter Into contracts with the 
land-owners. INIany of these, impoverished by the war, could 
not afford to pay them more than seven or eight dollars a 
month for their labor ; while some were not able to pay even 
that. Their fences destroyed, buildings burned, farming im- 
plements worn out, horses, mules, and other stock consumed 
by both armies, investments in Confederate bonds worthless, 
bank-stock gone, without money, or anything to exchange for 
money, they had often only their bare lands on which to com- 
mence life anew ; and could not therefore give much encour- 
agement to the freedman, whatever may have been their dis- 
position towards him. 

The legislative and local affairs of the State had very gen- 
erally fallen under the influence, or into the hands, of those 
wdio had given aid and sympathy to the Rebellion. Indeed, 
Governor Pierpoint told me that there were not unquestionably 
loyal men enough in Virginia to form a government. " In 
many counties," said he, " you will not find one." 

Yet Virginia sent to the convention of February 13th, 1861, 
a majority of Union delegates. It was only after the fall of 
Fort Sumter, and President Lincoln's call for troops, that a 
vote could be had taking the State out of the Union. Eighty- 



234 A GENERAL VIEW OF VIRGINIA. 

eight delegates voted for the ordinance of secession, fifty-five 
against it. It was afterwards — in the tempest of excitement 
which swept over the State — adopted hy the people by a ma- 
jority of ninety-four thousand. It was an act of passion and 
madness. Travelling through the State, I found a majority of 
the people professing to have been at heart Union men all the 
while. They could never forgive South Carolina for the evil 
course in which she , had led them ; and it was very common 
to hear the wish expressed, " that South Carolina and Massa- 
chusetts were kicked out into the Atlantic together." Having, 
however, against her better reason, seceded, Virginia becamv 
the most devoted and self-sacrificing of all the States in the 
cause in which she had embarked. 

The railroads of the State ^ were, both financially and phys- 
icallv, in a bad condition. They had been used excessively 
durino- the war, and stood in need of repairs. The iron taken 
from the Richmond and York River Road had not been re- 
placed. The time made by trains was necessarily slow. The 

1 In I860, there were in Virginia $66,000,000 of capital invested in 1675 miles of 
railroad, distributed over sixteen lines. This estimate includes 287 miles ol the Balti- 
more and Ohio lioad. In all the important roads except this, the State is a principal 
shareholder. The management of some of them has always been loose and unecono- 
mical. 

Governor Pierpoint wisely recommends a consolidation of certain lines: — " On the 
south side of James River we have the Norfolk and Petersburg, South-Side, Virginia 
and Tennessee, and the Richmond and Danville railroads. These roads are under 
the management of four different corps of officers, employed at remunerative salaries. 
Three of these roads form a continuous line of about four hundred miles, and all three 
of them afford business for the fourth. By working these roads separately a car is 
loaded at Norfdlk with freight for Danville or Abingdon; it is brought to Petersburg 
to the South-Side Road, and there transferred from the Norfolk to a South-Side car; 
thence it is taken to Burkeville, where it is again transferred to a Danville car, — if 
its destination is to that town, — or taken to Lynchburg and reshipped on the Vir- 
ginia and Tennessee Road, if it goes to Abingdon. In these transactions the cars are 
delayed, thereby causing a much larger investment in rolling-stock to acconnnodate 
the business of these roads, in addition to the labor required to load and unload the 
freight, besides exposing the merchandise to loss and delaying its transportation. 
The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, with the Northwestern Virginia and Washington 
branches, is nearly as long as the four roads above named, and the gross earnings of 
that railroad is about three times as great, the charges for passengers and freight being 
thirtj'-three per cent, less than on the Virginia roads referred to; j'et the whole busi- 
ness of the Baltimore and Ohio road is done by one corps of officers with moderate 
salaries. There is the same reason for consolidating the Orange and Alexandria and 
Virginia Central Roads." 



PROSPECTS OF VIRGINIA. 235 

The rolling-stock was limited, and generally in a worse condi- 
tion than the roads. But few lines were paying anything more 
than the expenses of running them. 

The old State banks went down with the Confederacy. The 
circulation of the new National Banks in the State did not, in 
January 1866, exceed $1,300,000. 

There was necessarily a great scarcity of money. It was 
difficult to raise funds even on the mortgage of real estate. The 
existence of usury laws, limiting the rate of interest at six 
per cent., operated to shut out Northern capital, which could 
find investments nearer home at more remunerative rates. 
When I was last in Richmond there was pending in the legis- 
lature a bill for the repeal of those laws, which, however, did 

not pass. 

The immediate prospects of Virginia are dismal enough. 
But beyond this morning darkness I see the new sun rismg. 
The great barrier, slavery, removed, all the lesser barriers to 
her prosperity must give way. The current of emigration, 
of education, of progressive ideas, is surely setting in ; and in 
a few years we shall see this beautiful torpid body rise up, 
renewed with health and strength, a glory to herself and to 
the Union. 



THE HOME OF PRESIDENT JOHNSON. 237 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

THE " SWITZERLAND OF AMERICA." 

From the grassy hills and vales of Southwest Virginia, I 
passed over by railroad into East Tennessee. 

At first sight, the " Switzerland of America " is apt, I think, 
to disappoint one. It is a country of pleasant hills, bounded 
and broken into by mountains which do not remind you of the 
Alps. The cottages of the inhabitants lack the picturesque 
element. A few first-class farmers have comfortable-looking 
painted or brick houses ; while scattered everywhere over the 
country are poverty-stricken, w^eather-blackened little framed 
dwellings and log-huts. Many of these are without windows ; 
the inmates living by the dayhght let in through doors, and 
the firelight from open chimneys. Good barns are rare. 
The common class of villages are without sidewalks or paved 
streets. In the rainy season they are wretched. They look 
like Northern villages that have set out to travel and got stuck 
in the mud. One or two are noteworthy. 

Greenville, the county seat of Greene County, is chiefly in- 
terestincr as being the home of the President. It stands on 
broken ground, and is surrounded by a fine hilly country 
shaded by oaken groves. The town, as I saw it one wet 
morning, was eminently disagreeable. The mud came up to 
the very doors of its old, dilapidated, unpainted wooden 
houses. Its more pretentious, white-painted and brick dwell- 
ings were not quite so deep in the mire. A hundred chimney 
smokes draped the brown irregular roofs. President Johnson's 
house is on Main Street; a commonplace, respectable brick 
dwellino;. The Rebels smashed the Avindows for him in war- 
times, but they have been replaced, and the house is now 



238 THE "SWITZERLAND OF AMERICA" 

occupied by the county sheriff. Every man knows "Andy 
Johnson." He has a good reputation for honesty, but I was 
told he was " hard on money matters." A promijient citizen 
who knew him intimately, said to me, " Johnson is a man 
of much greater ability than he has ever had credit for. 
When he was a tailor, he did his work well, — always a good 
honest job. He has many good traits, and a few bad ones. 
He is surly and vindictive, and a man of strong prejudices, 
but thoroughly a patriot." 

There is in Greenville a spring which bursts out of a hill- 
side in sufficient volume to carry a mill. The country abounds 
in springs, some of a curious character. In Johnson County, 
in the mountainous northeast corner of the State, there is a 
subterranean reservoir of water, out of which issue in the 
night-time, during the spring months, numbers of small black 
perch, of a blind species, which are caught in traps at the 
mouth of the spring. 

Knoxville, (named in honor of Revolutionary General 
Knox,) the most considerable town of East Tennessee, is sit- 
uated on abrupt hills, on the north bank of the Holston River, 
which is navigable by steamers to this point. Here is the junc- 
tion of the East Tennessee and Virginia, and East Tennessee 
and Georgia railroads. The city has something more than 
eight thousand inhabitants. It was formea'ly the capital of the 
State. It is surrounded by fortified hills. 

The place received rough treatment during the war. The 
Bell House, at which I stopped, was a miserable shell, carpet- 
less and dilapidated, full of broken windows. The landlord 
apologized for not putting it into repair. " I don't know how 
long I shall stop here. Hotel-keeping a'n't my business. 
Nigger-dealing is my business. But that 's played out. I 've 
bought and sold in my day over six hundred niggers," — 
spoken with mournful satisfaction, mingled pride and regret. 
" Now I don't know what I shall turn my hand to. I 'm 
a Georgian ; I came up here from Atlanta time it was 
burned." 

At the table of the Bell House, a Southern gentleman who 



EAST TENNESSEE LOYALTY. 239 

sat next me called out to one of the waiters, a good-looking 
colored man, perhaps thirty years of age, — " Here, boy ! " 

" My name is Dick," said the " boy," respectfully. 

" You '11 answer to the name I call you, or I '11 blow a hole 
through you I " swore the Southern gentleman. 

Dick made no reply, but went about his business. The 
Southern gentleman proceeded, addressing the company : — 

" Last w^eek, in Chattanooga, I said to a nigger I found at 
the railroad, ' Here, Buck I show me the baggage-room.' He 
said, ' My name a'n't Buck.' I just put my six-shooter to his 

head, and, by ! he did n't stop to think Avhat his name 

was, but showed me what I wanted." 

This gentlemanly way of dealing with the " d d im- 
pudent niggers " was warmly applauded by all the guests at 
the table, except one, who did not see the impudence ; showing 
that they Avere gentlemen of a similar spirit. 

There were a great many fi'e^dmen crowded into Knox- 
ville from Georgia and the Carolinas, whence they had escaped 
during the Avar. The police were arresting and sending them 
back. East Tennesseeans, though opposed to slavery and 
secession, do not like niggers. There is at this day more prej- 
udice against color among the middle and poorer classes — the 
" Union " men, of the South, who owned few or no slaves — 
than among the planters who owned them by scores and hun- 
dreds. There was a freedmen's school-house burned in Knox- 
ville, while I was in that part of the State ; and on reaching 
Nashville, I learned that the negro testimony bill had been 
defeated in the legislature by the members from East Ten- 
nessee. 

East Tennessee, owning but a handful of slaves, and having 
little interest in slavery, opposed secession by overwhelming 
majorities. She opposed the holding of a convention, at the 
election of February, 1861, by a vote of 30,903 against 
6,577 ; and, at the election in June following, opposed the 
ordinance of separation submitted to the people by the legisla- 
ture, by 32,923 votes against 14,780. The secession element 
proved a bitter and violent minority. Neighborhood feuds 



240 THE "SWITZERLAND OF AMERICA." 

ensued, of a fierce political and personal character. When the 
Confederate army came in, the secessionists pointed out their 
Union neighbors, and caused them to be robbed and mal- 
treated. They exposed the retreats of hunted conscripts lying 
out in forests and caves, and assisted in the pursuit of loyal 
refugees. When the National forces possessed the country, 
the Union men retaliated. It was then the persecutor's turn 
to be stripped of his property and driven from his home. 

I was sorry to find the fires of these old feuds still burning. 
The State Government was in the hands of Union men, and 
Rebels and refugees from the Union army were disfranchised. 
Secessionists, who assisted at the hanfrine; and robbino; of Union 
men, and burned their houses, were receiving just punishment 
for their crimes in the civil courts and at the hands of the sheriff. 
This was well ; and it should have been enough. But those 
who had suffered so long and so cruelly at the hands of their 
enemies did not think so. Returning Rebels were mobbed ; 
and if one had stolen back unawares to his home, it was not 
safe for him to remain there. I saw in Virginia one of these 
exiles, who told me how homesickly he pined for the hills and 
meadows of East Tennessee, which he thought the most de- 
lightful region in the world. But there was a rope hanging 
from a tree for him there, and he dared not go back. " The 
bottom rails are on top," said he : " that is the trouble." The 
Union element, and the worst part of the Union element, was 
uppermost. There was some truth in this statement. It was 
not the respectable farming class, but the roughs, who kept the 
old fires blazing. Many secessionists and Union men, who 
had been neighbors before the war, were living side by side 
again, in as friendly relations as ever. 

At Strawberry Plain, on the Holston River, I saw a mani- 
festation of this partisan spirit. A laboring man, whom I met 
on the butment of the burned railroad bridge, was telling me 
about the Rebel operations at that place, when a fine fellow 
came dashing into the village on horseback. 

" There 's a dog-goned Rebel now ! " said my man, eyeing 
him with baleful glances. " He 's a rebel colonel, just come 



A TALE OF REBEL PERSECUTION. 241 

back. He "11 get warned ; and then if he don't leave, he must 
look out ! " 

I think if the " dog-goned Rebel " had seen what 1 saw, in 
the deadly determination ot the man, he would have needed 
no further warning. 

I listened to many tales of persecution and suffering endured 
by loyal East Tennesseeans during the war. Here is the out- 
line of one, related to me by a farmer in Greene County. 

" After the Rebel Conscript Act passed, I started with my 
son and a hundred other refugees to go over the mountains 
into Kentucky. The Rebels pursued us, put on the track by 
some of our secesh neighbors. Some escaped, my son with 
them ; but I was taken, and brought back with irons on my 
wrists. That was the twenty -fifth of July, 1863. I was car- 
ried to Richmond, and kept in Castle Thunder till the twen- 
tieth of October. They then put me on a train to take me 
to Salisbury prison, in North Carolina. I was in a box car, 
and I found tliat a board at one corner of it was so loose that 
I could pull it off with my hands. Just at night, when we 
were about eighteen miles from Salisbury, and the train was 
running about ten miles an hour, I pulled away the board, and 
jumped off. I took to the fields, and tramped till I came to 
the Yadkin River, Avhere a nigger took me over in his canoe. 
I tramped all night, and lay by the next day in the woods, and 
tramped again the next night, and lay by again the next day, 
and so on for fourteen nights and days ; in which time I trav- 
elled three hundred miles. They were moonlight nights, and 
I got along very well, only I near-about starved. I lived on 
raw corn and pumpkins. I kept the line of the Western Rail- 
road ; I flanked the depots and pickets, but I was several times 
nigh being caught. I never entered a house, or passed near 
one, if I could help it. It was a hard, long, lonesome tramp. 
I did not speak to a human being, except the nigger that took 
me across the Yadkin, and another I almost run over on the 
road as I was coming to Asheville. He said to me, ' Good 
evening.' I muttered back something, and went on. I had n't 
gone far before I changed my mind. Something said to me, 

16 



242 THE "SWITZERLAND OF AMERICA. 

* Ask help of that nigger.' I was sick and worn out, and 
almost perishing for want of food. Besides, I did not know 
the country ; I saw I was coming to a town, and there was 
danger I might be taken. I went back, and said to the nigger, 
' Can you give me something to eat ? ' He was sitting on the 
ground ; but he jumped up, and looked at me by the moon- 
light, and said, ' Where do you want to go ? ' I told him. 
Then he knew I was a Union man running away from the 
Rebels. He told me to wait for him there, and came back in 
a little while with a heap of bread and beef. Never anything 
tasted so good. After I had eaten, he gave me directions 
how to avoid the guard, and strike the road beyond Asheville. 
I came over the mountains, and reached here the fourteenth 
night." 

East Tennessee contributed a liberal quota to the national 
army. Twenty-five thousand loyal refugees escaped into Ken- 
tucky, and fought their way back again with Burnside's forces 
in 1863. 



COMMON-SCHOOL FUND. 243 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

EAST TENNESSEE FARMERS. 

I FOUND the East TennesseeanS a plain, honest, indastnons, 
old-fashioned people. Only about four out of five can read 
and write. jNIen of the North and West would consider them 
slow. They are dressed, almost without exception, in coarse, 
strono- " domestic," as the home-manufactured cloth of the 
country is called. It is woven on hand-looms, which are to 
be found in nearly every form-house. Domestic is, in fact, 
an institution, not of Tennessee alone, but of the entire South- 
ern country. In the absence of manufacturing establishments, 
the interest in this primitive private industry has not been 
suffered to decline. It stood the South in good stead during 
the war. After the importation of goods was cut off, it clothed 
the people. All classes wore it. Even at the time of my visit, 
I found many proprietors of large estates, the aristocrats of 
the country, wearing garments which had been spun, colored, 
and woven by their own slaves. 

Tennessee has no system of free schools. There was a 
common-school fund, derived mainly from public lands given 
for the purpose by the United States. The State was the 
trustee of this fund, which the Constitution declared " perma- 
nent, never to be diminished by legislative appropriation," nor 
" devoted to any other use than the support and encourage- 
ment of common schools." The proceeds of this fluid dis- 
tributed among the schools in 1859, amounted to $230,430, 
or seventy-five cents for each scholar in the State. Treason, 
which betrayed so many sacred trusts, betrayed this. Accord- 
ing to Governor Brownlow " a more perfidious act than the 
appropriation of this fund to treasonable purposes was not 
committed during the late perfidious rebellion. 



244 EAST TENNESSEE FARMERS. 

The people of East Tennessee took more interest, perhaps, 
in common-school education, than the inhabitants of other parts 
of the State ; but that was not much. The school-fund went 
but a little Avay toward the support of schools. There were 
scattered throughout the country log school-houses capable of 
accommodating fifty pupils each. The tuition varied from two 
dollars and a half to three dollars a scholar. The teachers 
were supported by neighborhood subscriptions. But education 
was regarded by the poor as a luxury Avhich they could not 
afford ; and even the middling class was apt to consider their 
money and their children's labor of mox-e importance than 
book-learning. The war, and the waste of the school-fund, 
had for four years put an end to schools, and I found the new 
generation growing up in ignorance. 

The school-houses serve as meeting-houses. There are few 
churches beside. Outside of the larger towns, scarce a spire 
points its finger towards heaven. This is true not only of 
Tennessee, but of the whole South. It is one of the peculian- 
ties of the country which strike the Northern traveller unpleas- 
antly. The village green, with the neat white-steepled edifice 
standing upon it, distinguishable from all other buildings, is no 
feature of the Southern landscape. You may travel thousands 
of miles and not meet with it. 

Yet the East Tennesseeans are a church-going people. No 
especial form of meeting-house, any more than form of wor- 
ship, is necessary to the exercise of that divine faculty by 
which man communes with his Maker. The Holy Spirit 
enters as readily the log-hut, Avhere two or three are gathered 
together, as the great temples where multitudes assemble. 

The Methodist Church predominates in East Tennessee. 
The United Brethren, who admit to their communion no rum- 
seller, rum-drinker, nor slaveholder, have a powerful influ- 
ence. They were much persecuted in the South before the 
war, as was natural in a country where the prejudice in favor 
of rum and slavery was so strong ; but of late, in East Ten- 
nessee, they have grown in strength and populaiuty. 

Farming is behind the age. Mowers and reapers, which 



HORSES AND MULES. 245 

might be employed to fine advantage on the beautiful smooth 
meadows and grain-fields of East Tennessee, have scarcely 
come into use at all. In Greene County I heard of but three. 
Manures are wasted. It is customary to rotate crops, until 
even rotation must cease, giving place to a usurpation of weeds 
and broom-sedge. A favorite method of improving land is to 
" clover '' it ; that is, to plough in crops of clover and grass. 
Farming utensils are nearly all brought from the North ; and 
there is a jrreat need for home manufactures here also. The 
farmers generally work mules and mares. The mares are kept 
chiefly for breeding mules. For Avhich purpose likewise every 
neighborhood, if not every farm, has its "jack." 

The further my observations extended, the more strongly I 
was convinced that mules were an indispensable substitute for 
horses in the South. Animals there do not receive the cherish- 
ing care they get at the North ; and the rough, careless treat- 
ment which I saw almost universally shown to beasts of 
burden, not only by the negroes, but also by the whites, can be 
endured by nothing less hardy than the mule. This valuable 
creature, besides possessing the advantages I have elsewhere 
alluded to, is recommended for his brave appetite, which slights 
no part of the product of a hill of corn, but sturdily masters 
stalk, cob, and shucks. 

Animals are driven, both at ploughing and teaming, by one 
rein, which is attached to the middle of the bridle-rein on the 
neck of the " lead " horse or mule, as the " near '' or left-hand 
beast is called. The driver gives two little jerks for gee, and 
a steady pull for haw. This is the custom throughout the 
South. 

I found horses cheap in Tennessee. A farmer said to me, 
" A hundred and a half will buy our best animal. This is not 
because horses are plenty, but because money is scarce. For- 
merly we used to take large droves of our stock to Georgia 
and the Carolinas ; but that market is closed now, there is no 
money there." Several weeks afterwards, in one of the middle 
counties of South Carolina, I met this very man, who told me 
he had come into the State with eleven horses, and sold them 



246 EAST TENNESSEE FAEMERS. 

all at good prices. There had been more money hoarded, and 
more cotton reserved to be exchanged for money, m parts of 
the South than was at first supposed. 

Tennessee and Kentucky are the two great mule-breeding 
States. East Tennessee takes first rank aniono- the ofrazincr 

c? O O 

sections of the South and West. Wild grass abounds in the 
uncultivated districts. Interminable forests on the mountain 
sides are carpeted with it. The woods are kept open and free 
from undergrowth by fires ; and this native grass springs up 
and coders the o-round. The mountains are full of deer which 
feed upon it. Many a beautiful range of thousands of acres is 
also aftbrded the farmers' stock, which is sent in vast numbers 
to occupy this wild, free, unfenced pasturage. Neighbors club 
together to make up a herd of four or five hundred head of 
cattle, enough to render profitable the employment of a herds- 
man. Farmers have but little hay to provide for the winter 
season. The climate is such that there is no month in the 
year during which cattle cannot gain at least a partial subsist- 
ence by grazing. This I account one of the great advantages 
of the country. 

One of the great disadvantages is the want of a market. I 
saw a farmer in Jefferson County who had five thousand 
bushels of corn, for which he could find no sale near home ; 
and the cost of transportation Avas too great to think of taking 
it out of the State. Said he, " We find it for our interest to 
feed our farm-produce into stock, and drive it." 

I was told there was " a heap of thin, poor soil in East 
Tennessee." The ordinary land produces fifteen bushels of 
wheat, and thirty-five of corn to the acre. The lands on the 
river bottoms are incomparably better. Prices range from 
eight and ten to eighty and a hundred dollars per acre, accord- 
ing to the situation and quality. There are farms to be had 
in every section ; it can scarcely be said that they are for sale, 
there being no sale for them. Such is the distress for money 
among holders of real estate, that land can be had in some of 
the most desirable locations almost at the buyer's own pi'ice. 
It is claimed that before the war the wheat of East Tennessee 



ISLVNUFACTUKING FACILITIES. 247 

commanded the highest market-prices in Richmond and New 
York, as having that fine, enduring quahty wheat derives only 
from good Hmcstone soils. Fruits abound, — apples, peaches, 
pears, plums ; and both climate and soil are admirably adapted 
to the grape. The country is well watered, and its climate is 
mild and salubrious. Manufacturing facilities are abundant. 
There are forests and coal-mines, lead, zinc, iron, copper, 
marble, and unimproved water-power to any extent. 

Farmers told me they were paying the freedmen from eight 
to fifteen dollars a month, and boarding them. They said, 
*' We can afford to pay more than Virginians can, because we 
farm it better." They laughed at the Virginians' shiftless 
methods. Yet a few were beginning to learn that even they 
were not perfect in the business. One who had visited Iowa, 
where he saw men plough out two rows of corn at a time, and 
mow and reap with machinery, one hand doing the work of 
four or five men, said he had concluded that they in Tennessee 
did n't know anything. 



248 nq- AND ABOUT CHATTANOOGA. 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

IN AND ABOUT CHATTANOOGA. 

Two hundred and fifty miles from Knoxville, lying within 
a coil of the serpentine Tennessee, on its south bank, sur- 
rounded by mountains, is the town of Chattanooga. Here 
the East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad connects with the 
Nashville and Chattanooga, and with the Western and Atlan- 
tic, making the place an important centre of railroad commu- 
nications. The river is navigable for steamboats during eight 
months of the year. Here are shipped the principal exports 
of East Tennessee and of Southern Middle Tennessee. Hence 
the military importance of the place, and its historical in- 
terest. 

Although embosomed amid strikingly bold and grand sce- 
nery, Chattanooga is anything but a lovely town. On the 
east, but a few miles distant, is Missionary Ridge, ^ a range of 
forest-covered mountains rising from the river and sweeping 
away southward into Georgia. On the southwest is Lookout 
Mountain, with rugged, precipitous front overlooking the river 
and the town. Between this mountain and Missionary Ridge 
lies Chattanooga Valley. Rising steeply from the edge of the 
town, within the curve of the river which encloses it on the 
north and west, is Cameron Hill, a sort of miniature copy of 
Lookout. A miniature only by comparison ; for it is a little 
mountain by itself: a peaked bluff, its summit flanked by 
forts, and crowned by a battery of a single huge gun. 

If you visit Chattanooga, climb, as I did, this hill the first 
fair morning after your arrival. Away on the south are the 
mountams of Georgia; on the north, those of Tennessee. 

1 Or Mission Ridge; named from an Indian mission formerly located in this vicinity. 



ij r/;.A w^.-ssf'*" 




250 IX AND ABOUT CHATTANOOGA. 

Dividing these peaks and ranges witli its sliining cimetar, 
curves the river, overhung by precipitous crags. Far beneath 
you, as you look from the northern brow of the liill, ply the 
steamboats, breaking the surface into streaks of foam, and puff- 
ing white wreaths up into the clear, still air. 0}>posite, across 
the river, are clusters of high, wooded hills, with signal-sta- 
tions on their peaks. 

In the valley at the foot of Cameron, is Chattanooga, with 
its multitude of long, Ioav, whitewashed wooden buildings, 
government store-houses, barracks, shops, rows of huts, and 
corrals, such as make haste always to spring up around an 
army's base of supplies. Surrounding the town are red earth- 
works, and hills of red earth with devious roads and paths 
winding over them. 

I found a strangely mixed population in Chattanooga, — 
traders, adventurers, soldiers, poor whites, refugees, and ne- 
groes. There w^ere many Union men from the Cotton States, 
wdio had escaped into our lines during the war, and either 
could not or dared not return. Here is a sample of them, — 
a lank, sallow, ragged individual with long black hair and wild 
beard, whose acquaintance I made in the streets. He was a 
shoemaker from Georo;ia. His Rebel neighbors had burned 
his house and shop, destroyed his tools, and forced him to flee 
for his life. He enlisted in our army, and had been fighting 
his daddy and two brothers. 

" INIy daddy," said he, " is as good a Rebel as you '11 find. 
He has grieved himself nigh-about to death because he did n't 
gain his independence." 

I asked him how his father would receive him if he should 
go back. 

" I allow we should n't git along together no hack ! The 
first question I 'd ask him would be if he 'd tuck the oath of 
allegiance. That would devil him to death. Then I 'd ask 
him if he knowed whar his President Jeff was. Then he 'd 
jest let in to cussin' me. But I can't go back. The men that 
robbed me are jest as bad Rebels as ever, and they 'd burn my 
house again, or give me a bullet from behmd some bush." 



FREEDMEN'S SCHOOLS. 251 

There was in Chattanooga a post-school for the children 
of poor whites and refugees. It numbered one hundred and 
fifty pupils of various ages, — young children, girls of fifteen 
and sixteen, one married w^oman, and boys that were almost 
men, all wofully ignorant. Scarcely any of them knew their 
letters when they entered the school. The big boys chewed 
tobacco, and the big girls " dipped." The mothei's, when 
they came to talk with the teacher about their children, ap- 
peared with their nasty, snuffy sticks in their mouths : some 
chewed and spat like men. One complained that she was too 
poor to send her children to school ; at the same time she was 
chewing up and spitting away more than the means needful 
for the purpose. Tobacco was a necessity of life ; education 
wasn't. The tax upon pupils was very small, the school being 
mainly supported by Avhat is called the " post-fund," accruing 
from taxes on sutlers, rents of buildings, and military fines. 
The post-school is usually designed for the children of soldiers ; 
but Chattanooga being garrisoned by colored troops, their chil- 
dren attended the freedmen's schools. 

The freedmen's schools were not in session at the time of 
my visit, owing to the small-pox then raging among the negro 
population ; but I heard an excellent account of them. They 
numbered six hundred pupils. The teachers were furnished by 
the Western Freedmen's Aid Society and paid by the freedmen 
themselves. One dollar a month was charged for each scholar. 
" The colored people," said the school-superintendent, " are far 
more zealous in the cause of education than the whites. They 
will starve themselves, and go without clothes, in order to send 
their children to school.'- 

Notwithstanding there were three thousand negroes in and 
around Chattanooga, Captain Lucas, of the Freedmen's Bu- 
reau, informed me that he was issuing no rations to them. 
All were finding some work to do, and supporting themselves. 
To those who appUed for aid he gave certificates, requesting 
the Commissary to sell them rations at Government rates. 
He was helping them to make contracts, and sending them 
away to plantations at the rate of fifty or one hundred a 



252 IN AND ABOUT CHATTANOOGA. 

■week. " These people," said he, " have been teiTibly slan- 
dered and abused. They are willing to go anywhere, if they 
are sure of work and kind treatment. Northern men have 
no difficulty in hiring them, but they have no confidence in 
their old masters." It was mostly to Northern men, leasing 
plantations in the Mississippi Valley, that the freedmen were 
hiring themselves. The usual rate of wages was not less 
than twelve nor more than sixteen dollars a month, for full 
hands. 

The principal negro settlement was at Contraband, a village 
of huts on the north side of the river. Its affairs Avere admin- 
istered by a colored president and council chosen from among 
the citizens. These were generally persons of dignity and 
shrewd sense. They constituted a court for the trial of minor 
offences, under the supervision of the Bui'eau. Their decis- 
ions, Captain Lucas informed me, were nearly always wise 
and just. " I have to interfere, sometimes, however, to miti- 
gate the severity of the sentences." These men showed no 
prejudice in favor of their own color, but meted out a rugged 
and austere justice to all. 

One afternoon I crossed the river to pay a visit to this little 
village. The huts, built by the negroes themselves, were of a 
similar character to those I had seen at Hampton, but they 
lacked the big wood-piles and stacks of corn, and the general 
air of thrift. Excepting the ravages of the small-pox, the 
community was in a good state of health. I found but one 
case of sickness, — that of an old negro suffering from a cold 
on his lungs, who told me there was nothing in the world he 
would n't give to " git shet of dis sher misery." 

I entered several of these houses ; in one of which I surprised 
a young couple courting by the fire, and withdreAv precipitately, 
quite as much embarrassed as they were. In another I found 
a middle-aged woman patching clothes for her little boy, who 
was at play before the open door. Although it was a summer- 
like December day, there was a good fire in the fireplace. 
The hut was built of rails and mud ; the chimney of sticks and 
sun-dried bricks, surmounted by a barrel. The roof was of 



CONTRABAND VILLAGE. 253 

split slabs. There was a slab mantel-piece crowded with 
bottles and cans ; a shelf in one corner loaded with buckets 
and pans ; and another in the opposite corner devoted to plates, 
cups, and mugs. I noticed also in the room a table, a bed, a 
bunk, a cupboard, a broom without a handle, two stools, and a 
number of pegs on which clothing was hung. All this within 
a space not much more than a dozen feet square. 

I asked the woman how her people were getting alono-. 
" Some are makin' it right shacklin'," she replied, " there 's 
so many of us here. A heap is workin', and a heap is lazin' 
aroimd." Her husband was employed whenever he could get 
a job. " Sometimes he talks like he 'd hire out, then like he 
'd sooner take land, — any way to git into work. All have to 
support themselves somehow." 

She knew me for a Northern man. " I 'm proud of Northern 
men ! They 've caused me to see a heap mo'e i:)leasure 'n I 
ever see befo'e." Her husband was a good man, but she was 
not at all enthusiastic about him. " I had one husband ; I 
loved him ! He belonged to a man that owned a power o' 
darkeys. He sold him away. It just broke my heart. But I 
could n't live without some man, no how ; so I thouo-ht I mio-ht 
as well marry again." She regretted the closing of the schools. 
" My chap went a little, but not much." 
" Are these your chickens ? " 

" No, I can't raise chickens." It Avas the fault of her 
neighbors. " They just pick 'em up and steal 'em in a 
minute ! Heap of our people will pick up, but they 're sly. 
That comes from the way they was raised. I never stole in 
my life but from them that owned me. They 'd work me all 
day, and never give me enough to eat, and I 'd take what I 
could from 'em, and believe it was right." 

Hearing martial music as I returned across the river, I went 
up on a hill east of the town and witnessed the dress-parade 
of the sixteenth colored regiment (Tennessee). I never saw 
a finer military display on a small scale. The drill was per- 
fect. At the order, a thousand muskets came to a thousand 
shoulders with a single movement, or the butts struck the 



254 IN AND ABOUT CHATTANOOGA. 

ground with one sound along the whole line. The contrast of 
colors was superb, — the black faces, the white gloves, the 
blue uniforms, the bright steel. The music by the colored 
band was mellow and inspiring ; and as a background to the 
picture we had a golden sunset behind the mountains. 



LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN. 255 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 

LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN. 

The next morning General Gillera, in command at Chatta- 
nooga, supplied me with a horse, and gave me his orderly for 
an attendant, and I set out to make the ascent of Lookout 
Mountain. 

Riding out southward on one of the valley roads, we had 
hardly crossed Chattanooga Creek before we missed our way. 
Fortunately we overtook a farmer and his son, who set us 
right. They were laboring over the base of the mountain 
with a wagon drawn by a pair of animals that appeared to have 
been mated by some whimsical caprice. A tall, bony horse 
was harnessed in with the smallest mule I ever saw. Imagine 
a lank starved dog beside a rat, and you have an idea of the 
ludicrous incongruity of the match. 

The man had in his wagon a single bag of grist, which he 
had to help over the rough mountain-roads by lifting at the 
wheels. He had been twelve miles to mill : " away beyant 
Missionary Ridge." I asked him if there was no mill nearer 
home. " Thar 's a mill on Wahatchie Crick, but it 's mighty 
hard to pull thar. Wahatchie Hill is a powerful bad hill to 
pull up." He did not seem to think twelve miles to mill 
anything, and we left him lifting cheerfully at the wheels, 
while his son shouted and licked the team. I trust his wife 
appreciated that bag of grist. 

Ridincr southward along the eastern side of the mountain, 
we commenced the ascent of it by a steep, rough road, wind- 
ing among forest-trees, and huge limestone rocks colored with 
exquisite tints of brown and gray and green, by the moss and 
lichens that covered them. A range of precipitous crags rose 
before us, and soon hung toppling over us as we continued to 



256 LOOKOUT MOUNTAII^. 

climb. A heavy cloud was on the mountam, combed by the 
pine-tops a thousand feet above our heads. 

As we proceeded, I conversed with the General's orderly. 
He Avas a good-looking young fellow with short curly hair 
and a sallow complexion. I inquired to what regiment he 
belonged. 

" The Sixth Ohio, colored." I looked at him with surprise. 
" You did n't take me for a colored man, I reckon," he said 
laughingly. 

I thought he must be jesting, but he assured me that he was 
not. 

" I was born in bondage," he said, " near Memphis. My 
master was my father, and my mother's owner. He made a 
will that she was to be free, and that I was to learn a trade, 
and have my freedom when I was twenty-one. He died 
when I was seven years old, and the estate was divided be- 
tween his mother and two sisters. I don't know what became 
of the will. I was run off" into Middle Tennessee and sold 
for three hundred dollars. I was sold again when I was four- 
teen for sixteen hundred dollars. I was a carpenter ; and 
carpenters was high. When I saw other men no whiter than 
me working for themselves and enjoying their freedom, I got 
discontented, and made up my mind to put out. The year 
Buchanan run for President I ran for freedom. I got safe 
over into Ohio, and there I worked at my trade till the war 
broke out. I went out as an officer's servant." 

He met with various adventures, and at length became 
General Grant's body-servant. He described the General as 
" a short, chunked man, like a Dutchman ; " quiet, kind, a 
great smoker, a heavy drinker, very silent, and seldom ex- 
cited. " There was only one time when he appeared troubled 
in his mind. That was on the road to Corinth, after the battle 
of Shiloh. He used to Avalk his room all night." 

After the government began to make use of colored troops 
he went back to Ohio and enlisted. Since the war closed, he 
had obtained a furlough, returned to his native place, and 
found his mother, who in the mean time had been held as a 
slave. 



"BATTLE m THE CLOUDS." ' 257 

The clouds lifted as we reached the svimmit of the moun- 
tain, fifteen hundred feet above the river. We passed through 
Summer Town, a deserted village, formerly a place of resort 
for families from Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama, during 
the hot season. A rough road over the rocks and through the 
woods took us to Point Lookout, a mile fai'ther north. 

A lookout indeed ! What cloud shadows Avere sweeping the 
mountains and valleys ! We left our horses tied to some trees, 
and clambered down over the ledges to the brink of the preci- 
pice. Away on the northeast was Chattanooga, with its 
clusters of roofs resembling saw-teeth. Below us was the 
crooked Tennessee, sweeping up to the base of the mountain, 
in a coil enclosing on the opposite side a foot-shaped peninsula, 
to which the Indians gave the appropriate name of Moccasin 
Point. 

Immediately beneatli us, on a shelf of tlie mountain, be- 
tween its river-washed base and the precipice on which we 
stood, was the scene of Hooker's famous " battle in the clouds." 
The Rebels occupied a cleared space on that tremendous eleva- 
tion. Behind them rose the crags ; before them gloomed the 
woods, covering the lower part of the mountain. Along the 
cleared space, between the woods and the crags, ran tlieir line 
of stone breastworks, which still remained, looking like a 
common farm-wall. The enemy had heavy guns on the sum- 
mit of the mountain, but they could not be got into position, 
or sufficiently depressed, to be of service. Beside, the summit, 
on the morning of the attack, was immersed in mist, which 
concealed everything. The mist did not envelop the scene of 
the fight, however, but hung over it ; so that the " battle in 
the clouds " was in reality a battle under the clouds. 

The Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad runs around the 
curve of the river, under the mountain. As we sat looking 
down from the Point, a coal-train appeared, crawling along 
the track like a black snake. 

Returning over the crest to the summit of the road, we paid 
a visit to Mr. Foster, known as the " Old Man of the Moun- 
tain." He was living in a plain country-house on the eastern 
17 



258 LOOKOUT MOUNTAEN". 

brow, with the immense panorama of hills and vales and for- 
ests daily before his eyes. He was one of the valiant, un- 
flinching; Union men of the South. In its wild nest on that 
crag his liberty-loving soul had lived, untamed as an eagle, 
through the perils and persecutions of the war. He was 
sixty-nine years old ; which fact he expressed in character- 
isticall}' quaint style : " Tennessee came into the Union the 
sixth day of June, 1796 ; and on the twenty-second day of 
June I came into the world to see about it." 

His father was a Revolutionary soldier. " He was shot to 
pieces, in a manner. It took a heap of his blood to nourish 
Uncle Sam when he was a little feller. I recollect his saying 
to me, ' There 's going to be wars ; and when they come, I 
want you to remember what the Stars and Stripes cost your 
old father.' I did not foro;et the lesson when this cursed 
secession war begun." 

He was by trade a carpenter. He came up on the moun- 
tain to live twenty years before, on account of his health, 
which was so poor in the valley that people said he was 
froino- to die, but which had been robust ever since. Twice 
during the war he was condemned by the Vigilance Com- 
mittee to be hung for his Union sentiments and uncompromis- 
ing freedom of speech. Twice the assassins came to his house 
to take him. 

" The first time they came, it was Sunday. J\Iy wife had 
gone over the mountain to preaching, and I was alone. I 
loaded up my horse-pistol for 'em, — sixteen buck-shot : I put 
in a buck load, I tell ye. There Avas only two of 'em ; and 
I thought I was good for three or four.. They 'd hardly got 
inside the gate when I went out to 'em, and asked what they 
wanted. * One said, ' We 've come for Old Foster ! ' I just 
took the rascal by the arm, and gave him a monstrous clamp, 
— I thought I felt the bone, — and shoved him head-over- 
heels out of that gate. I was going to shoot t'other feller, 
but they rode oflP so fast down the mountain I had no chance." 

The next attempt on his life resulted similarly. After that, 
the Committee did not persist in getting him executed. " 1 



"OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN." 259 

was so old, I suppose they thought I was of no account." He 
told of several other Union men, however, whom they had 
caused to he hung. " After the Rebels got brushed out, 
Sherman and Hooker came to pay me a visit, and denomi- 
nated me the ' Old Man of the Mountain.' " 



260 THE SOLDIERS' CEIVIETEEY. 



CHAPTER XXXV. 

THE SOLDIERS' CEMETERY. 

A MILE and a quarter southeast from the town is the 
National Cemetery of Chattanooga. An area of seventy-five 
acres has there been set apart by the miUtary authorities for 
the burial of the soldiers who died in hospitals or fell on battle- 
fields in that region renowned for sanguinary conflicts. It 
occupies a hill which seems to have been shaped by Provi- 
dence for this purpose : its general form is circular, and it 
rises with undulations, showing a beautiful variety of curves 
and slopes, to a superb summit, which swells like a green 
dome over all. 

General Thomas, commanding the Division of the Tennes- 
see, was nominally the director of the cemetery works. But 
he appears to have left all in the hands of Mr. Van Home, 
chaplain of the post, who, in addition to his other duties, 
assumed the responsible task of laying out the grounds and 
supervising the interments. His plan has certainly the merit 
of originality, and will prove, in the end, I have no doubt, as 
beautiful as it is unique. Copying nothing from the designs 
of other cemeteries, he has taken Nature for his guide. The 
outline of each separate section is determined by its location. 
Here, for example, is a shield, — the rise of the ground and 
the natural lines of depression suggesting that form. In the 
centre of each section is a monument ; immediately surround- 
ing which are the graves of officers, in positions according to 
their numbers and rank ; while around the latter are grouped 
the graves of private soldiers, in lines adapted to the general 
shape of the section. The paths and avenues follow the hol- 
lows and curves which sweep from the base in every direction 
towards the summit. This is surrounded by a single circular 



A SILENT HOST. 261 

avenue ; and is to be crowned, according to the chaplain's 
plan, with a grand central monument, an historic temple 
overlooking the Avhole. 

The place will abound in groups of trees, verdant lawns 
and slopes, magnificent vistas, and concealed views designed 
to surprise the visitor at every step. Outcropping ledges and 
bold, romantic rocks afford a delightful contrast to the green 
of the trees and grass, and to the smoothness of the slopes. 

Beside the avenue which girds the base of the hill is a cave 
with galleries and chambers sculptured in a variety of forms 
by the action of water on the limestone rock. The chaplain, 
who accompanied me on my visit to the cemetery, sent for a 
guide and a light, and we explored this natural grotto a hun- 
dred feet or more, until we came to passages too narrow to 
admit us into the unknown chambers beyond. Besides the 
entrance from the avenue, there is an opening which affords 
a glimpse of the blue sky by day, or of the stars by night, 
throuirh the roof of the cave. 

The hill rises from the Valley midway between Lookout 
Mountain and Missionary Ridge, commanding a view of all 
that historic region. The Tennessee is visible, distant a mile 
or more. The chaplain told me that when the river was very 
high, w^ater came in and filled the galleries of the cave ; thus 
showing that they were of great extent, and mysteriously con- 
nected with the stream. 

The work on the cemetery had thus far been performed by 
details from the army. The post-fund, which amounted to 
twenty-seven thousand dollars, had defrayed all expenses. 
But this cannot continue. The time is coming when the 
people of the States will be called upon to pay the debt they 
owe to the heroic dead, in liberal contributions towards the 
completion and adornment of this spot, where probably will 
be sathered too;ether a more numerous host of the slain than 
in any other national cemetery. From Chickamauga and 
Mission Ridge, from Lookout Mountain and Wahatchie, from 
the scones of many lesser fights, from the hospitals, and pos- 
sibly also from the fields of Sherman's Atlanta campaign, 



262 THE SOLDIEES' CEMETERY. 

thousands upon thousands they will come, a silent host, to this 
goal of future pilgrimages, this " Mecca of American mem- 
ories." 

Nine thousand had already been interred there at the time 
of my visit. No attempt was made to hmy the dead by 
States. " I am tired of State Rights," said General Thomas ; 
" let 's have a national cemetery." Out of six tliousand in- 
terred before the removal of the dead of Chickamauga was 
begun, only four hundred were unknown. A military record 
is kept, in which are inscribed all ascertainable facts respect- 
ing each, — his name, rank, company, arm of service, native 
State, age ; time, place, and cause of death ; address of nearest 
friends, and so forth ; accompanied by a full regimental index, 
and an individual index ; so that persons in search of the graves 
of friends can learn by a brief examination all that is known 
about them, and be guided at once to the section and number 
where then* remains are deposited. The chaplain told me that 
many who had come with a determination to remove the bodies 
of their dead, immediately on seeing the cemeter}^ had changed 
that determination, convinced that they could have no more 
fitting resting-place. 

The dead of Chickamauga were being interred while I was 
there ; and the chaplain kindly offered to accompany me to 
the battle-field, where a regiment of colored soldiers were at 
work exhuming the buried, and gathering together the re- 
mains of the imburied dead. 



MISSION RIDGE. 263 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 

MISSION RIDGE AND CHICKAMAUGA. 

Accordingly, one cloudy December morning the chaplain, 
accompanied by two ladies of his household, took me up at my 
hotel, and drove us out of Chattanooga on the Rossville Road. 
• Leaving the open valley behind us we crossed a bushy plain, 
and passed through a clump of oaken woods. Before us, on 
the east, rose Missionary Ridge, forest-covered, its steep sides 
all russet-hued with fallen leaves, visible through the naked 
brown trees. 

The chaplain* who witnessed the scene, described to us the 
storming of those heights by the Army of the Cumberland, on 
the twenty-fifth of November, a little more than two years be- 
fore. It was the finishing stroke to which the affair at Look- 
out Mountain was the brilliant prelude. It was the revenge 
for Chickamauga. There was a Rebel line of works along 
the base of the ridge ; and the crests were defended by in- 
fantry and heavy artillery. The charge was ordered ; and 
forward across the plain and up the slope swept a single 
p-litterino; line of steel six miles in leno-th. The Rebels were 
driven from their lower works by the bayonet. The araiy 
rushed forward without firing a shot, and pausing only to take 
breath for a moment in the depressions of the hill ; then on- 
ward again, storming the heights, from which burst upon them 
a whistling; and howlino; storm of iron and lead. General 
Thomas says the Ridge was carried simultaneously at six dif- 
ferent points. The attack commenced at three o'clock in the 
afternoon ; at four the crests were taken, and Bragg's army in 
flight. The first captured gun was turned upon the enemy by 
Corporal Kramer of the Forty-first Ohio regiment, belonging 
to Hazen's brigade of Wood's division. He discharged it by 



264 missio:n^ ridge and chickamauga. 

firing liis musket over the vent. It took six men to carry the 
colors of the First Ohio to the svunmit, five falHng by the way 
in the attempt. Corporal Angelbeck, finding a Rebel caisson 
on fire, cut it loose from the horses and run it off down the 
hill before it exploded. These instances of personal intrepid- 
ity (which I give on the authority of Major-General Hazen, 
whom I saw afterwards at Murfreesboro') are but illustrations 
of the gallantry shown by our troops along the whole line. 

The plain we were crossing was the same which General 
Hooker's forces swept over in their pursuit of the enemy. 
We passed the Georgia State-line ; and, amid hilly woods 
filled with a bushy undergrowth, entered the mountain soli-* 
tudes ; crossing Missionary Ridge by the Rossville Gap. Ross- 
ville, which consisted of a blacksmith-shop and dwelling in the 
Gap, had been burned to the ground. Beyond this point the 
road forked ; the left-hand track leading to Ringold, the right 
to Lafayette. * 

Driving southward along the Lafayette Road we soon 
reached the site of Cloud Spring Hospital, in the rear of the 
battle-field. A desolate, dreary scene : the day was cold and 
wet ; dead leaves strewed tlie ground ; the wind whistled in 
the trees. There Avere indications that here the work of dis- 
interment was about to begin. Shovels and picks were ready 
on the ground ; and beside the long, low trenches of the dead 
waited piles of yellow pine coffins spattered with rain. 

A little further on we came to traces of the conflict, — 
boughs broken and trees cut off" by shells. We rode south- 
ward along the line of battle, over an undulating plain, Avitli 
sparse timber on one side, and on the other a field of girdled 
trees, which had been a cottd'n-ficld at the time of the battle. 
These ghostly groves, called " deadenings," sometimes seen 
in other parts of the country, are an especial feature of the 
Southern landscape. When timbered land is to be put under 
cultivation,' the trees, instead of being cut away, are often 
merely deadened with the axe, which encircles them with a 
line severing the bark, and there left to stand and decay slowly 
through a series of years. First the sapless bark flakes and 



THE " DEADENINGS." 265 

falls piecemeal, and the wind breaks off the brittle twigs and 
small boughs. Next the larger .*branches come down ; and 
the naked trunk, covered in the course of time by a dry-rot, 
and perforated by worms and the bills of woodpeckers, stands 
with the stumps of two or three of its largest topmost limbs 
upstretched in stern and sullen gloom to heaverf. There is 
something awful and sublime in the aspect of a whole forest of 
such. The tempest roars among them, but not a limb sways. 
Snrino" comes, and all around the woods are oreen and glad, 
but not a leaf or tender bud puts forth upon the spectral 
trunks. The sun rises, and the field is ruled by the shadows 
of these pillars, which sweep slowly around, shortening as noon 
approaches, and lengthening again at the approach of night. 
Corn and cotton flourish well ; the powdery rot and half- 
decayed fragments which fall serving as a continual nourish- 
ment to the soil. It takes from ten to twenty years for these 
corpses standing over their graves to crumble and disappear 
beneath them. Sometimes they rot to the roots ; or, when all 
is ready, a hurricane hurls his crashing balls, and the whole 
grove goes down in a night-time, like ten-pins. 

Dismal enough looked the " deadening," in the cold and 
drizzlino; rain that mornincr on the battle-field. Scarcelv less 
so seemed the woods beyond, all shattered and torn by shot and 
shell, as if a tornado had swept them. On the northern side 
of these was Kelly's house. The Dyer Farm was beyond ; 
upon which we found two hundred colored soldiers encamped, 
in a muddy village of winter huts near the ruins of the burned 
farm-house. The Dyer family were said to be excellent 
Rebels. Dyer served as a guerilla ; and it was his Avife who 
burned her feather-bed in order that it might not be used by 
our wounded soldiers. After that patriotic act she wandered 
off in the woods and died. Her husband had since returned, 
and was now living in a new log-hut within sight of the camp. 

The camp was a strange spectacle. The men were cooking 
their dinners or drying their clothes around out-door fires of 
logs which filled the air with smoke. Near b}^ were piles of 
cofi&ns, — some empty, some containing the remains of soldiers 



266 MISSION RIDGE AND CHICKAMAUGA. 

that had just been disinterred. The camp was surrounded by- 
fields of stumps and piny undergrowth. Here and there were 
scattered trees, hitched at some of which were mules munch- 
ing their dinners of wet hay. 

There were two hundred and seventeen soldiers in camp. 
At first the/ had a horror of the work for which they were 
detailed. All the superstition of the African was roused 
within them at sight of the mouldering dead. They declared 
that the skulls moved, and started back with shrieks. An 
officer, to encourage them, unconcernedly took out the bones 
from a grave and placed them carefully in a coffin. They 
were induced to imitate his example. In a few hours they 
chatted or whistled and sang at their work ; and in a few days 
it was common to see them perform their labor and eat their 
luncheons at the same time, — lay bones into the coffin with 
one hand, and hold with the other the hard-tack they were 
nibbling. 

More than nine tenths of the bodies taken from Chicka- 
niaucra were unknown. Some had been buried in trenches ; 
some singly ; some laid side by side, and covered with a little 
earth, perhaps not more than six inches deep, leaving feet and 
skull exposed ; and many had not been buried at all. Through- 
out the woods were scattered these lonely graves. The method 
of finding them was simple. A hundred men were deployed 
in a line, a yard apart, each examining half a yard of ground 
on both sides of him, as they proceeded. Thus Avas swept a 
space five hundred yards in breadth. Trees were blazed or 
stakes set along the edge of this space, to guide the company 
on its return. In this manner the entire battle-field had been 
or was to be searched. When a grave was found, the entire 
line was halted until the teams came up and the body was re- 
moved. Many graves were marked with stakes, but some 
were to be discovered only by the raised or disturbed appear- 
ance of the ground. Those bodies which had been buried in 
trenches were but little decomposed ; while of those buried 
sino-ly in boxes not much was left but the bones and a handful 
of dust. 



// 

BLUNDEB AT CIIICKAMAUGA. 267 

We had diverged from the Lafayette Road in order to ride 
along tlie line of battle east of it, — passing the positions occu- 
pied on Sunday, the second day, by Baird, Johnson, and Pal- 
mer's divisions, respectively. Next to Palmer was Reynolds ; 
then came Brannan, then Wood, then Davis, then Sheridan, 
on the extreme right. The line, which on Saturday ran due 
north and south, east of the road, — the left resting at Kelly's 
house and the right at Gordon's Mills, — Avas on Sunday 
curved, the right being drawn in and lying diagonally across 
and behind the road. In front (on the east) was Chickamauga 
Creek. Missionary Ridge was in the rear ; on a spur of which 
the right rested. I recapitulate these positions, because news- 
paper accounts of the battle, and historical accounts based 
upon them, are on two or three points confused and contra- 
dictory : and because an understanding of them is important 
to what I am about to say. 

Quitting the camp, we approached the scene of the great 
blunder which lost us the battle of Chickamauga. At half- 
past nine in the morning the attack commenced, the Rebels 
hurling masses of troops with their accustomed vigor against 
Rosecrans's left and centre. Not a division gave way : the 
whole line stood firm and unmoved : all was going well ; when 
Rosecrans sent the following imperative order to General 
Wood : — 

" Close up as fast as possible on G-eneral Reynolds, and sup- 
port Zii'm." 

General Brannan's division, as you have noticed, was be- 
tween Wood and Reynolds. How then could Wood close up 
on Reynolds without taking out his division and marching by 
the left flank in Brannan's rear? In mihtary parlance, to 
close up may mean two quite different things. It may mean 
to move by the flank in order to close a gap which occurs be- 
tween one body of troops and another body. Or it may mean 
to make a similar movement to that by which a rank of sol- 
diers is said to close up on the rank in front of it. To dose to 
the right or left, is one thing ; to close up on, another. To Gen- 
eral Wood, situated as he was, the order could have no other 



268 MISSION EIDGE AND CHICKAMAUGA. 

meaning than the latter. He could not dose up on General 
Reynolds and support him without taking a position in his 
rear. Yet the order seemed to him very extraordinary. To 
General McCook, who was present when it was received, he 
remarked, — 

" This is very singular ! What am I to do ? " For to take 
out liis division was to make a gap in the army which might 
prove fatal to it. 

" The order is so positive," replied McCook, " that you 
must obey it at once. Move your division out, and I will 
move Davis's in to fill the gap. Move quick, or you won't be 
out of the way before I bring in his division." 

General Wood saw no alternative but to obey the order. 
He would have been justified in disobeying it, only on the 
supposition that the commanding general was ignorant of the 
position of his forces. Had Rosecrans been absent from the 
field, such a supposition would have been reasonable, and such 
disobedience duty. But Rosecrans was on the field ; and he 
was supposed to know infinitely more than could be known 
to any division commander concerning the exigencies of the 
battle. Had Wood kept his place, and Reynolds been over- 
whelmed and the field lost in consequence of that act of 
insubordination, he would have deserved to be court-mar- 
tialled and shot. On the contrary, he moved his division 
out, and in consequence of his strict obedience to orders the 
•field was lost. He had scarcely opened the gap between 
Brannan and Davis, when the Rebels rushed in and cut 
the army to pieces. 

General Rosecrans, in his official report, sought to shift the 
responsibility of this fatal movement from his own shoulders 
to those of General Wood. This was manifestly unjust. It 
appears to me that the true explanation of it lies in the fact 
that Rosecrans, although a man of brilliant parts, had not 
the steady balance of mind necessary to a great general. He 
could organize an army, or plan a campaign in his tent ; but 
he had no self-possession on the field of battle. In great 
emergencies he became confused and forgetful. It was prob- 



GENEEAL THOMAS'S FIGHT. 269 

aWy this nervousness and paralysis of memory which caused 
the disaster at Chickamauga. He had forgotten the position 
of his forces. He intended to order General Wood to close 
to the left on Brannan ; or on Reynolds, forgetting that Bran- 
nan was between them. But the order was to close up on 
and siq^jjort Reynolds ; whereas Reynolds, like Brannan, was 
doing very well, and did not particularly need support. 

The routed divisions of the army fled to Chattanooga,— 
the commanding general among the foremost ; where he has- 
tened to telegraph to the War Department and the dismayed 
nation that all was lost ; while General Garfield, his chief of 
staff, extricating himself from the rahhle, rode back to the 
part of the field where firing was still heard, — running the 
o-auntlet of the enemy's lines, — and joined General Thomas, 
who, rallying fragments of corps on a spur of Missionary 
Ridge, was stemming the tide of the foe, and saving the army 
from destruction. 

Through woods dotted all over with the graves of soldiers 
buried where they fell, we drove to the scene of that final fight. 

Bones of dead horses strewed the ground. At the foot of 
the wooded hill were trenches full of Longstreet's slaughtered 
men. That was to them a most tragical termination to what 
had seemed a victory. Inspired by their recent success, they 
charo-ed again and again up those fatal slopes, only to be cut 
down like ripe grain by the deadly volleys which poured from 
a crescent of flame and smoke, where the heroic remnant of the 
array had taken up its position, and was not to be dislodged. 



270 FEOM CHATTANOOGA TO MUEFEEESBORO'. 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 

FROM CHATTANOOGA TO MURFEEESBORO'. 

The military operations, of Avhich Chattanooga was so long 
the centre, have left their mark upon all the surrounding 
country. Travel which way you will, you are sure to follow 
in their track. There are fortifications at every commanding 
point. Every railroad bridge is defended by redoubts and 
block-houses ; and many important bridges have been burned. 
The entire route to Atlanta is a scene of conflict and desola- 
tion: earthworks, like the foot-prints of a Titan on the march ; 
rifle-pits extending for miles along the railroad track ; hills all 
dug up into forts and entrenchments ; the town of Marietta in 
ruins ; farms swept clean of their fences and buildings ; every- 
where, along the blackened war-path, solitary standing chim- 
neys left, "like exclamation points," to emphasize the silent 
story of destruction. 

I saw a few " Union men " at Chattanooga. But their 
loyalty was generally of a qualified sort. One, who was well 
known for his daring opposition to the secession leaders, and 
for his many narrow escapes from death, told me how he lived 
during the war. Once when the Rebels came to kill him, they 
took his brother instead. His residence Avas on a hill, and 
three times subsequently he saved his life by taking a canoe 
and crossing the river in it when he saw his assassins coming. 
Yet this man hated the free negro worse than he hated the 
Rebels ; and he said to me, " If the government attempts now 
to force negro-suflFrage upon the South, it will have to wade 
through a sea of blood to which all that has been shed was 
only a drop ! " Another, who claimed also to be a Union 
man, said, " Before the South will ever consent to help pay 
the National debt, there will be another rebellion bigger than 



STORY OF TWO BROTHERS. 2.71 

the last. You would make her repudiate her own war-debt, 
and then pay the expenses of her own whipping. I tell you, 
this can't be done." The threats of another rebellion, and of 
an extraordinarily large sea of blood, were not, I suppose, to be 
understood literally. This is the fier}' Southron's metaphorical 
manner of expressing himself. Yet these men were perfectly 
sincere in their profession of sentiments which one would have 
expected to hear only from the lips of Rebels. 

On the morning of Thursday, December 14th, I bid a joyful 
farewell to Chattanooga, which is by no means a delightful 
place to sojourn in, and took the train for Murfreesboro'. 
The weather was cold, and growing colder. Winter had come 
suddenly, and very much in earnest. Huge icicles hung from 
the water-tanks by the railroad. The frost, pushing its crystal 
shoots up out of the porous ground, looked like thick growths 
of fungus stalks. The rain and mist of the previous night 
were congealed upon the trees ; and the Cumberland Moun- 
tains, as we passed them, appeared covered with forests of 
silver. 

The country was uninteresting. Well-built farm-houses 
were not common ; but log-huts, many of them without 
windows, predominated. These were inhabited by negroes 
and poor whites. I remember one family living in a box-car 
that had been run off the track. Another occupied a gro- 
tesque cabin having for a door the door of a car, set up endwise, 
marked conspicuously in letters reading from the zenith to the 
nadir, " U. S. MILITARY R. R." We passed occasionally 
cotton-fields, resembling at that season and in that climate 
fields of low black weeds, with here and there a bunch of cotton 
sticking to the dry leafy stalks. 

Next me sat a gentleman from Iowa, whose history was a 
striking illustration of the difference between a slave State 
and a free State. He had just been to visit a brother living 
in Georgia. They were natives of North Carolina, from which 
State they emigrated in early manhood. He chose the North- 
west ; his brother chose the South ; and they had now met for 
the first time since their separation. 



272 FROM CHATTAKOOGA TO MURFREESBORO'. 

" To me," said he, " it was a very sad meeting. Georgia 
is a hundred years behind Iowa. My brother has always 
been poor, and always will be poor. If I had to live as he 
does, I should think I had not the bare necessaries of life, 
not to speak of comforts. His children are growing up in 
ignorance. When I looked at them, and thought of my 
own children, — intelhgent, cultivated, with their schools^ their 
books, and magazines, and piano, — I was so much affected I 
couldn't speak, and for a minute I 'd have given anything if 
I had n't seen how he was situated. It is n't my merit, nor 
his fault, that there is so great a difference now^ between us, 
who were so much alike when boys. If he had gone to Iowa, 
he would have done as well as I have. If I had gone to 
Georgia, I should have done as poorly as he has." 

He Avas the only Northern man in the car besides myself, — 
as was to be seen not only by the countenances of the other 
passengers, but also by the spirit of their conversation. Be- 
hind us sat an ignorant brute, with his shirt bosom streaked 
with tobacco drizzle, who was saying in a loud, fierce tone, 
that " we 'd better kill off the balance of the niggers," for he 
had " no use for 'em now they were free." Others were 
talking about Congress and the President. One little boy 
four years old amused us all. He enjoyed the range of the 
car, and had made several acquaintances, some of whom, to 
plague him, called him Billy Yank. Great was tlie little fel- 
low's indignation at this insult. " I a'n't Billy Yank ! I 'm 
Johnny Reb I '' he insisted. As the teasing continued, lie flew 
to his mother, Avho received him in her arms. " Yes, he is 
Johnny Reb ! so he is ! " And his little heart was comforted. 

At half-past three we I'eached IMurfreesboro', having been 
nine hours travelling one hundred and nine miles. This I 
found about the average rate of speed on Southern roads. 
The trains run slow, and a great deal of time is lost at 
stopping-places. Once, when wo were wooding up, I went 
out to learn what was keeping us so long, and saw two of the 
hands encrafred in a scuffle, which the rest were watching with 
human interest. On another occasion the men had to bring 



A TENNESSEE MANSIOK. 273 

wood out of the forest, none having been provided for the 
engine near the track. 

Murfreesboro' is situated very near the centre of the State. 
It had in 1860 three thousand inhabitants. It has six 
churches, and not a decent hotel Before the war it enjoyed 
the blessing of a University, a mihtary institute, two female 
colleges, and two high-schools ; all of which had been discon- 
tinued. It was also described to me as " a pretty, shady 
village, before the war." But the trees had been cut a^vay, 
leaving uolv stump-lots ; and the country all around was laid 
desolate. 

Knowino- how wretched must be my accommodations at the 
only tavern then open to the public, General Hazen hospitably 
insisted on my removal to his head-quarters on the evening of 
my arrival. I found him occupying a first-class Tennessee 
mansion on a hill just outside the town. The house was cru- 
ciform, with a spacious hall and staircase in the centre, open- 
ino- into lofty wainscoted rooms above and below. The rich- 
ness of the dark panels, and the structural elegance of the 
apartments, were unexceptionable. But the occupants of 
these could never have known comfort in wintry weather. 
The house was built, like all southern houses, for a climate 
reputed mild, but liable to surprises of cruel and treacherous 
cold, against wdiich the inhabitants make no provision. The 
General and I sat that evening talking over war times, with a 
huge fire roaring before us in the chimney, and roasting our 
faces, while the freezing blast blew npon our backs from irre- 
mediable crevices in the ill-jointed wainscots and casements. 
I slept that night in a particularly airy chamber, with a good 
fire striving faithfully to master the enemy, and found in the 
morning the contents of the water-pitcher, that stood in the 
room, fast frozen. 

I was amused by the grimaces of the negro servant who 
came in to replenish the fire before I was up. He inquired if 
we had any colder weather than that in the North, and when 
I told him how I had seen iron pump-handles stick to a wet 
hand on a fine wintry morning, Evolving sometimes the sacri- 

18 



274 FROM CHATTAi^OOGA TO MURFREESBORO'. 

fice of epidermis before the teetli of the frost could be made 
to let go, he remarked excitedly, — 

" I would n't let de iron git holt o' my hand ! I hain't no 
skin to spar', mornin' like dis slier ! " 

As I sat at breakfast with the General, he told me of his 
official intercourse with the inhabitants, since he had been in 
command of the post. " The most I have to do," said he, 
" is to adjust difficulties between Union men and Rebels. 
There are many men living in this country who acted as scouts 
for our army, and who, when they Avanted a horse to use in 
the service of the government, took it without much ceremony 
where they could find it. For acts of this kind the law-loving 
Rebels are now suing them for damages before the civil courts, 
and persecuting them in various ways, so that the military 
power has to interfere to protect them." 



EOSECRANS'S FORTRESS. 275 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

STONE pjvp:u. 

After breakfast in a laro;© dinino;-room wliich no fuel could 
heat, ^\c went and stood by the liearth, turnhig ourselves on 
our heels, as the earth turns on its axis, warming a hemisphere 
at a time, until the wintry condition of our bodies gave place 
to a feeling of spring, half sunshine and half chill ; then we 
clapped on our overcoats and mufflers ; then two poAverful 
war-horses of the General's came prancing to the door, ready 
bridled and saddled ; and we mounted. A vigorous gallop 
across the outskirts of the town and out on the Nashville Pike 
set the sympathetic blood also on a gallop, and did for us what 
fire in a Tennessee mansion could not do. In ten minutes we 
were thoroughly warm, with the exception of one thumb in a 
glove which I wore, and an ear on the windward side of the 
General's rosy flice. 

Riding amid stump-fields, where beautiful forests had cast 
their broad shades before the war, we entered the area of 
the vast fortress constructed by the army of Rosecrans, 
lying at Murfreesboro' after the battle. This is the largest 
work of the kind in the United States. A parapet of earth 
three miles in circumference encloses a number of detached 
redoubts on commanding eminences. The encircled space 
is a mile in diameter. It contained all Rosecrans's store- 
houses, and was large enough to take in his entire arm3\ It 
would require at least ten thousand troops to man its breast- 
works. The converging lines of the railroad and turnpike 
running to Nashville pass through it ; and across the north 
front sweeps a bend of Stone River. We found the stream 
partly frozen, chafing between abrupt rocky shores sheathed 
in ice. 



276 STONE RIVER. 

A mile beyond, the converging lines above mentioned cut 
each other at a sharp angle ; the railroad, which goes out of 
Murfreesboro' on the left, shifting over to the right of the 
turnpike. Crossing them at nearly right angles, a short dis- 
tance on the Murfreesboro' side of their point of intersection, 
was the Rebel line of battle, on the morning of the thirty- 
first of December. Half a mile beyond this point, on the 
Nashville side, was the Union line. 

The railroad here runs through a cut, with a considerable 
embankment, — a circumstance of vital importance to our 
army, saving it, probably, from utter rout and destruction, on 
that first day of disaster. The right wing, thrown out two 
miles and more to the west of the railroad, rested on nothing. 
It was left hanging in the air, as the French say. An attack 
was expected, yet no precautions were taken to provide 
against an attack. General Wood, who had posted scouts in 
trees to observe the movements of the Rebels, reported to the 
commanding general that they were rapidly moving troops 
over and massing them on their left. Rosecrans says he sent 
the information to McCook ; McCook says he never received 
it. When the attack came, it was a perfect surprise. It was 
made with the suddenness and impetuosity for which the 
enemy was distinguished, and everything gave way before it. 
Division after division was pushed back, until the line, which 
was projected nearly perpendicular to the railroad in the 
morning, lay parallel to it, — that providential cut affording 
an opportune cover for the rallying and re-forming of the 
troops. 

Another feature of the field is eminently noticeable. The 
bold river banks, curving in and out, along by the east side of 
the railroad, made a strong position for the Union left to rest 
upon. Here, in a little grove called by the Rebels the " Round 
Forest," between the river and the railroad, was General 
Wood's division, planted like a post. On his right, hke a bolt 
of iron in that post, was Hazen's brigade, serving as a pivot 
on which the whole army line swung round like a gate. The 
pivot itself was inmiovable. In vain the enemy concentrated 



SOLDIERS' CEMETERY A^D MONUMENT. 277 

his utmost efforts against it. Terribly smitten ami battered, 
but seemingly insensible as iron itself, there it stuck.^ 

It was extremely interesting to visit this portion of the field 
in company with one who played so important a part in the 
events enacted there. We rode through a cotton-field of 
black leafy stalks, with little white bunches clinging to them 
like feathers or snow. It was across that field, between Round 
Forest and the railroad, that Hazen's line was formed. On 
the edge of it, by the forest, still lay the bones of a horse 
shot under him during the battle. 

Near by was a little cemetery, within which the dead of 
Hazen's brio-ade were buried. A well-built stone wall encloses 
an oblong space one hundred feet in length by forty in breadth. 
Within are thirty-one limestone tablets marking the graves 
of the common soldiers. In the midst of these stands a mon- 
ument, on which are inscribed the names of officers whose 
remains are deposited beneath it. This is also of limestone, 
massy, well formed, ten feet square on the ground and eleven 
feet in height. It is interesting as being the only monument 
of importance and durability erected by soldiers during the war. 

On the south side, facing the raih'oad and turnpike, is the 
following legend : — 

"HAZEN'S BRIGADE 

TO 

THE MEMORY OF ITS SOLDIERS 
WHO FELL AT 
STONE RIVER, DEC. 31, 18G2. 
' Tlieir faces toward heaven, their feet to the foe.' " 

1 The right brigade of Palmer's division had been the Last to yield. The left bri- 
gade, in command of Hazen, was thus exposed to fire in flank and rear, and to the 
attempts of the enemy to charge in front. It required terrible fighting to beat back 
the enemy's double lines: it cost a third of the brave brigade; but every moment the 
enemy was held back was worth a thousand men to the main line. General Rosecrans 
improved the time so well, in hurrv'ing troops to the new position, that, when tlio 
enemy assailed tliat line, the fi-esh divisions of Van Cleve, Wood, and Rousseau, 
and the artillery massed on a commanding point, not only repulsed them, but they 
were charged wliile retiring by one of Crittenden's brigades. . . . The enemy 
had miscalculated the temper of Hazen's brigade; and Bragg was obliged to report, 
as he did in his first despatch, that he " had driven the whole Federal line, except his 
left, which stubbornly resisted." — Annals of the, Army of the Cumberland. 



278 STOI^E RIVER. 

On the east side is the following : — 

" The Veterans of Shtloh have left a deathless 

HERITAGE OF FAME UPON THE FIELD OF StONE RiVER." 

On the north side : — 
. " Erected 1863, upon the ground where they fell, by their 
comrades of the Nineteenth Brigade, Buell's Army of the 
Ohio, Col. W. B. Hazen 41st Infantry O. Vols, commanding." 

On the west side : — 

" The blood of one third its soldiers twice spilled in Ten- 
nessee crimsons the battle-flag of the brigade and inspires to 
great deeds." 

From the soldiers' cemetery at Round Forest we rode on 
to the new National Cemetery of Stone River, then in process 
of construction. It lies between the railroad and the turn- 
pike, in full view from both. A massy square-cornered stone 
wall encloses a space of modest size, sufficiently elevated, and 
covered with neatly heaped mounds, side by side, and row be- 
hind row, in such precise order, that one might imagine the 
dead who sleep beneath them to have formed their ghostly 
ranks there after the battle, and carefully laid themselves 
down to rest beneath those small green tents. The tents were 
not green when I visited the spot, but I tnast they are green 
to-day, and that the birds are singing over them. 



CO^BIERCE OF KASHVILLE. 279 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 

THE HEART OF TENNESSEE. 

Having spent the remainder of the forenoon in riding over 
other portions of the field, we returned to Murfreesboro' ; and 
at half-past three o'clock I took the train for Nashville. 

At Nashville I remained four days, — four eminently dis- 
agreeable days of snow, and rain, and fog, and slush, and 
mud. Yet I formed a not unfavorable impression of the city. 
I could feel the influence of Northern ideas and enterprise 
pulsating through it. Its population, which was less than 
twenty-four thousand at the last census, nearly doubled during 
the war. Its position gives it activity and importance. It is 
a nostril throuo-h which the State has lonn; breathed the 
Northern air of free institutions. It is a port of entry on the 
Cumberland, which affords it steamboat communication Avith 
the great rivers. It is a node fi*om which radiate five impor- 
tant railroads connecting it with the South and North. The 
turnpikes leading out of it in every direction are the best sys- 
tem of roads I met with anywhere in the South. 

Middle Tennessee is the largest of the three natural divis- 
ions of the State. It is separated from the West division by 
the Tennessee River, and from East Tennessee by the Cumber- 
land Mountains. It is a fine stock-raising country ; and the 
valley of the Cumberland River affords an extensive tract of 
excellent cotton and tobacco lands. 

Nashville is the great commercial emporium of this division. 
The largest annual shipment of cotton from this port was fifty 
thousand bales ; the average, before the war, was about half 
as many : during 1865, it was fully up to this average, con- 
sisting mostly of old cotton going to market. Six thousand 
hogsheads of tobacco, two million bushels of com, and twenty- 



280 THE HEART OF TENNESSEE. 

five thousand hogs, — besides ten tliousand casks of bacon and 
twenty-five hundred tierces of lard, — were yearly shipped 
from this port. The manufacturing interest of the place is in- 
significant. 

The prospects of the country for tlie present year seemed to 
me favorable. The freedtnen were making contracts, and 
going to work. Returned Rebels were generally settling down 
to a quiet life, and turning their attention to business. The 
people were much disposed to plant cotton, and every eff"ort 
was making to put their desolated farms into a tillable condi- 
tion. 

Yet Middle Tennessee is but an indifferent cotton-o-rowing 
region. It is inferior to West Tennessee, and can scarcely be 
called a cotton country, when compared with the rich valleys 
of the more Southern States. Eight hundred pounds of seed 
cotton^ to the acre are considered a good crop on the best 
lands. The quality of Middle Tennessee cotton never rates 
above " low middling," but generally below it, (the different 
qualities of cotton being classed as follows : inferior, ordinary, 
good ordinary, low middling, middling, good middling, mid- 
dluig fair, good fair, and fine.) 

I found considerable business doing with an article which 
never before had any money-value. Cotton seed, Avhich used 
to be cast out from the gin-houses and left to rot in heaps, the 
planter reserving but a small portion for the ensuing crop, 
was now in great demand, prices varying from one to three 
dollars a bushel. In some portions of the Rebel States it had 
nearly run out during the war, and those sections which, like 
Tennessee, had continued the culture of the plant, were sup- 
plying the deficiency. The seed, I may here mention, resem- 
bles, after the fibre is removed by the gin, a small-sized pea 
covered with fine white wool. It is very oily, and is consid- 
ered the best known fertilizer for cotton lands. 

Nashville is built on the slopes of a hill rising from the 

1 That is, of cotton and seed : the gin takes out fifty or sixty per cent, of the gross 
weight. 



BATTLE OF NASHVILLE. 281 

soutli bank of the Cumberland. Near the siuiimit, one 
hundred and seventy-five feet above the river, stands the 
capitol, said to be the finest State capitol in the United States. 
The view it commands of the surrounding country is superb ; 
and seen from afar off, it seems, with its cupola and Ionic 
porticoes, to rest upon the city like a crown. It is constructed 
of fine fossiliferous limestone, three stories in height ; with a 
central tower lifting the cupola two hundred feet from the 
gi'ound. This tower is the one bad feature about the building. 
It is not imposing. The site is a lofty crest of rock, which 
was fortified during the war, converting the capitol into a 
citadel. The parapets thrown up around the edifice still 
remain. 

My visit happened on the first anniversary of the battle of 
Nasliville, which took place on the fifteenth and sixteenth days 
of December, 1864; — a battle which, occurring after many 
great and sanguinary conflicts, did not rise to highest fame ; 
and which has not yet had ample justice done it. It is to 
be distinguished as the only immediately decisive battle of the 
war, — the only one in which an army was destroyed. By it 
the army of Hood was annihilated, and a period put to Rebel 
power in the States which Sherman had left behind him on liis 
great march. 

The scene of the battle, the sweeping undulations of the 
plain, the fields, the clumps of woods, and the range of hills 
beyond, are distinctly visible in fair weather from the house- 
tops of the city, and especially from the capitol. The fight 
took place under the eyes of the citizens. Every " coigne of 
vantage " was black with spectators. Patriots and Rebel 
sympathizers were commingled : the friends and relatives of 
both armies crowding together to witness the deadly struggle ; 
a drama of fearfully intense reality ! The wife of a noted 
general officer who was in the thickest of the fight, told me 
something of her experience, watching from the capital with a 
glass the movements of his troops, the swift gallop of couriers, 
the charge, the repulse, the successful assault, the ground 
dotted with the slain, and the awful battle cloud, rolHng over 



282 THE HEART OF TENNESSEE. 

all, enfolding, as she at one time believed, his dead form Avith 
the rest. But he lived ; he was present when she told me 
the story ; — and shall I ever forget the emotion with which 
he listened to the recital? The battle was no such terrible 
thins: to the soldier in the midst of it, as to the loved one look- 
ing on. 

The State legislature adjourned for the Christmas holidays 
on the morning of my visit to the capitol ; but I was in time 
to meet and converse with members from various parts of the 
State. They were generally a plain, candid, eai-nest class of 
men. They were the loyal salt of the State. Some of them 
were from districts in which there were no Union men to 
elect them ; to meet which contingency the names of the 
candidates for both houses had been placed on a general ticket. 
Thus members from West and Middle Tennessee, where the 
Rebel element was paramount, were elected by votes in East 
Tennessee, which was loyal. 

With Mr. Frierson, Speaker of the Senate, I had a long 
conversation. He was from Maury County, and a liberal- 
minded, progressive man, for that intensely pro-slavery and 
Rebel district. We talked on the exciting topic of the hour, 
— negro suffrage, and the admission of negro testimony in the 
courts. " My freedmen," he said, " are far more intelligent 
and better prepared to vote, than the white population around 
us."- Yet as a class he did not think the negroes prepared to 
exercise the right of suffrage, and he was in favor of granting 
it only to such as had served in the Union army. To the ne- 
groes' loyalty and good behavior he gave the highest praise. 
" It is said they would have fought for the Confederacy, if the 
opportunity had been given them in season. But I know the 
nesro, and I know that his heart was true to the Union from 
the first, and throughout ; and I do not believe he would have 
fought for the Rebellion, even on the prbmise of his liberty." 
He thought the blacks competent to give testimony in the 
courts ; but for this step society in Tennessee was not pre- 
pared. Both the right of voting and of testifying must be 
given them before long, however. 



conveesatio:n" with governor brownlow. 283 

There were two classes of Union men in Tennessee. One 
class had manifested their loyalty by their uncompromising 
acts and sacrifices. The other class were merely legal Union 
men, professing loyalty to the government and friendliness to 
the negro. " These are not to be trusted," said Mr. Frierson. 
" Their animosity against the government and the freedmen, 
and more particularly against heart Union men, is all the more 
dangerous because it is secret." And it was necessaiy in his 
opinion to retain the Freedmen's Bureau in the State, and to 
keep both Rebels and rebel sympathizers excluded from power, 
for some years. 

I have given so much of this conversation to ilkistrate the 
views entertained by the average, moderate, common-sense 
Union men of Tennessee. Far behind them, on the question 
of human rights, were some of the negro-haters and Rebel- 
persecutors of East Tennessee ; while there was a handful of 
leading men as far in advance of them. A good sample of 
these was the honorable John Trimble, of Nashville, also a 
member of the legislature, whom I had the satisfaction of 
meeting on two or three occasions : a man of liberal and culti- 
vated mind, singularly emancipated from cant and prejudice. 
He had just introduced into the General Assembly a bill ex- 
tending the elective franchise to the freedmen, with certain 
restrictions ; for the passage of which there was of course little 
chance. 

I was just in time to catch Governor Brownlow as he was 
about going home for the holidays. I should have been sorry 
to miss seeing this remarkable type of native Southern- West- 
ern wit. As an outspoken convert from the pro-slavery doc- 
trines he used to advocate, to the radical ideas which the agita- 
tions of the times had shaken to the surface of society, he was 
also interesting to me. I found him a tall, quiet individual, 
of a nervous temperament, intellectual forehead, and a gift of 
language, — with nothing of the blackguard in his manners, 
as readers of his writings might sometimes be led to expect. 
His conversation was characteristic. He believed a Rebel had 
no rights except to be hung in this world, and damned after 



284 THE HEAET OF TENNESSEE. 

death. But this and other similar expressions did not proceed 
so much from a vindictive nature, as from that tendency to a 
strong, extravagant style of statement, for which Western and 
Southern people, and especially the people of Tennessee, are 
noted. 

Of his compatriots, the Union-loving East Tennesseeans, he 
said, " It is hard* to tell which they hate most, the Rebels, or 
the negroes." He did not sympathize with them in the ill- 
feeling they bestowed upon the latter. He was in favor of 
the Neo-ro Testimony Bill, which had just been defeated in the 
leoislature by East Tennessee members ; and as for negro 
suffrao-e, he thought it was sure to come in a few years. 

" The Rebels," said he, " are as rebellious now as ever. If 
Thomas and his bayonets were withdrawn, in ten days a Rebel 
mob would drive this legislature out. Congress," he added, 
" will have to legislate for all the Rebel States, Tennessee 
with the rest." 

From the Governor's I went over to the division head- 
quarters to call on Major-General Thomas, — a very different 
type of native Southern men. Born and bred a Vix'ginian, 
his patriotism was national, knowing no State boundaries. In 
appearance, he is the most lion-like of all the Union generals 
I have seen. An imperturbable, strong soul, never betrayed 
into weakness or excess by any excitement, his opinions pos- 
sessed for me great value. 

"We spoke of the national soldiers' cemeteries in his division ; 
and he informed me that besides those I had visited at Chat- 
tanooga and Murfreesboro', others proposed by him had been 
sanctioned by the War Department. " We shall have one 
here at Nashville ; and I have already selected the site for 
it," — a fortified hill in the suburbs. " There will be one at 
Franklin ; also one at Memphis ; another at Shiloh ; and an- 
other large one at Atlanta ; " for he did not favor the plan of 
burying the dead of the Atlanta campaign at Chattanooga. 

The military division, called the " Division of the Tennes- 
see," which General Thomas commands, comprises the States 
of Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. 



GENERAL THOMAS'S OPINIONS. 285 

He did not tliink that in cither of those States there Avas any 
love for the Union, except in the hearts of a small minority. 
Tennessee was perhaps an exception. It was the only one of 
the Southern States that had reorganized on a strictly Union 
basis. It had disfranchised the Rebels. The governor, the 
legislature, and the recently elected members of Congress, 
were unquestionably loyal men. The Rebel State debt had 
been repudiated, and the Constitutional Amendment abolishing 
slavery adopted. East Tennessee could take care of itself; 
but in Middle and West Tennessee, where the Rebel senti- 
ment predominated, personal and partisan animosities were so 
strong that Union men must for some time to come have the 
protection of the government. There were then in Ten- 
nessee about six thousand troops, stationed chiefly at Chatta- 
nooga, Memphis, and Nashville, with smaller garrisons scat- 
tered throughout the State, sufficient to remind the people 
that the government still lived. 

As for the freedman. General Thomas thought the respec- 
table classes, and especially the intelligent large planters, were 
inclined to treat him with justice ; but habit and prejudice 
were so strong even with them, that the kind of justice he 
might expect would be largely mixed with wrong and outrage, 
if the Bureau was withdrawn. 

The General was in the receipt of information, from entirely 
distinct and reliable sources, concerning secret organizations 
in the Southern States, the design of which was to embarrass 
the Federal Government and destroy its credit, to keep alive 
the fires of Rebel animosity, and to revive the cause of the 
Confederacy whenever there should occur a favorable oppor- 
tunity, such as a political division of the North, or a war with 
some foreign power. As his testimony on this subject has been 
made public, I shall say nothing further of it here, except to 
express my sense of the weight to be attached to the conclu- 
sions of so calm and unprejudiced a man. 

He had great faith in the negro. " I may be supposed to " 
know something about him, for I was raised in a slave State ; 
and I have certainly seen enough of him during and since the 



286 THE HEART OF TEJTNESSEE. 

war. There is no doubt about his disposition to work and 
take care of himself, now he is free." When I spoke of the 
great difference existing between different African races, he 
repHed, " There is more abihty and fidehty in these apish- 
looking negroes than you suppose " ; and he proceeded to re- 
late the following story : — 

" I had a servant of the kind you speak of during the war. 
I saw him first at a hotel in Danville, Kentucky ; he waited 
on me a good deal, and attracted my attention because he 
looked so much like a baboon. He took a liking to me, from 
some cause, and in order to be near me, engaged in the service 
of one of my staff-officers. I saw him occasionally afterwards, 
but gave him little attention, and had no suspicion of the roman- 
tic attachment with which I had inspired him. At length I 
had the misfortune to lose a very valuable servant, and did not 
know how I should replace him : servants were plenty enough, 
but I wanted one who could understand what I wished to 
have done without even being told my wishes, and who would 
have it done almost before I was aware of the necessity. I 
happened to name these qualities of a perfect valet in the 
presence of one of my aides, who said to me, ' I have just the 
man you want ; and though I would n't part with him for 
any other cause, you shall have him.' I accepted his offer ; 
and what was my surprise when he introduced to me the 
baboon. I at first thought it a jest ; but soon learned that 
he had conferred upon me a great favor. I never had such 
a servant. In a week's time he understood perfectly all my 
habits and requirements, and it was very rare I ever had to 
give him a verbal order. We had difficulty in getting our 
washing and ironing properl}'' done, in the army ; but one day 
I noticed my linen was looking better than usual. The fellow 
had anticipated my want in that respect, and learned to wash 
and iron expressly to please me. He soon became one of the 
best washers and ironers I ever saw ; I don't think a woman 
in America could beat him. As soon as his newly acquired 
art became known, it was in demand ; and he asked permis- 
sion to do the linen of some of my officers, which I granted. 



GENERAL FISIvE'S ACCOUNT. 287 

He was industrious and provident ; lie supported a family, and, 
during the tlu'ee years he was with me, laid by two thousand 
dollars." 

Among other prominent men I saw was General Fiske, of 
the FrecdmcMrs Bureau, Assistant-Commissioner for the States 
of Tennessee and Kentucky. There were in his district six 
hundred thousand freedmen. He was issuing eight hundred 
rations daily to colored women and children, and three times 
as many to white refugees. " During the past four years," 
said he, " between Louisville and Atlanta, we hq,ve fed with 
government charity rations sixty-four white to one colored 
person." The local poor he refused to feed. " I told the 
Mayor of Nashville the other day that if he did not take care 
of his poor, I would assess the whiskey shops for their benefit. 
There are four hundred and eighteen shops of that kind in this 
city ; and eighteen thousand dollars a day are poured down 
the throats of the people." 

The colored people of Nashville had organized a provident 
association managed exclusively by themselves, the object of 
which was the systematic relief of the poor, irrespective of 
color. 

Speaking of the differences arising between the freedmen 
and the whites. General Fiske said, " In thirteen cases out of 
fifteen, the violution of contracts originates witli the whites." 
Since the defeat of the Negro Testimony Bill in the legislature, 
he had taken all cases, in which freedmen were concerned, 
out of the civil courts, and turned them over to freedmen's 
courts, where alone justice could be done them. 

" In my work of elevating the colored race," said he, " I 
get more hearty cooperation from intelligent and influential 
Rebel slave-holders, than from the rabid Unionists of East 
Tennessee." 

Speaking of the laziness with which the negroes were 
charged, he said, " They are more industrious than the whites. 
You see young men standing on street corners with cigars in 
their mouths and hands in their pockets, swearing the negroes 
won't work; while they themselves are supported by their 



288 THE HEART OF TENNESSEE. 

own mothers, who keep boarding-houses. The idle colored 
families complained of are usually the wives and children of 
soldiers serving in the Federal army ; and they have as good a 
right to be idle as the wives and children of any other men 
who are able and willing to support their families. In this 
city, it is the negroes who do the hard work. Tliey handle 
goods on the levee and at the railroad ; drive drays and 
hacks ; lay gas-pi])es ; and work on new buildings. In the 
country they are leasing farms ; some ai*e buying farms ; oth- 
ers are at work for wages. Able-bodied plantation hands earn 
fifteen and twenty dollars a month ; women, ten and twelve 
dollars ; the oldest boy and girl in a family, five and nine dol- 
lars. Hundreds of colored families are earning forty dollars 
a month, besides their rations, quarters, medical attendance, 
and the support of the younger children." 

The schools of General Fiske's district, under the superin- 
tendence of Professor Ogden, were in a promising condition. 
There were near fifteen thousand pupils, and two hundred 
and sixty-four teachers. Many summer schools, which for 
want of school - houses Avere kept under trees, had been 
discontinued at the coniino; on of winter. Rebels returning; 
home with their pardons were also turning the freedmen out 
of buildings used as school-houses. The consequence was a 
falling off of nearly one third in the number of puj)ils since 
September. 

In Nashville there was a school supported by the United 
Presbyterian Mission, numbering eight hundred pu[)ils ; and 
another by the Pennsylvania Freedmen's Relief Association, 
numbering three hundred and fifty. The American Mission- 
ary Association and Western Freedmen's Aid' had united in 
purchasing, for sixteen thousand dollars, land on which had 
been erected twenty-three government hospital buildings, 
worth fifty thousand dollars, which, " by the superior man- 
agement of General Fiske," said Professor Ogden, " have 
been secured for our schools." It was pro])osed to establish 
in them a school, having all grades, from the primaiy up to 
the normal. There was a great need of properly qualified 



PLANTATION SCHOOLS. 289 

colored teachers to send into by-places ; which this school was 
designed to supply. 

General Fiske had introduced a system of plantation schools, 
which was working well. Benevolent societies furnished the 
teachers, and planters were required to furnish the school- 
houses. A plantation of one hundred and fifty hands and 
forty or fifty children would have its own school-house. 
Smaller plantations would unite and build a school-house in 
some central location. These conditions were generally put 
into the contracts with the planters, who were beginning to 
learn that there was nothing so encouraging and harmonizing 
to the freedmen as the establishment of schools for their chil- 
dren. 

19 



290 BY RAILROAD TO CORINTH. 



CHAPTER XL. 

BY KAILKOAD TO CORINTH. 

I LEFT Nashville for Decatur on a morning of dismal rain. 
The cars Avere crowded and uncomfortable, with many pas- 
sengers standing. The railroad Avas sadly. short of rolling- 
stock, having (like most Southern roads) only such as 
happened to be on it when it was turned' over to the directors 
by the government. It owned but three first-class cars, only 
one of which we had with us. * The rest of the passenger 
train was composed of box-cars supphed Avith rude seats. 

We passed the forts of the city ; passed the battle-ground 
of Franklin, with its fine rolling fields, marked by entrench- 
ments ; and speeding on through a well-wooded handsome 
section of country, entered Northern Alabama. As my obser- 
vations of that portion of the State Avill be of a general 
character, I postpone them until I shall come to speak of the 
State at large. 

It was raininor again when I left Decatur, ferried across the 
Tennessee in a barge manned by negroes. Of the railroad 
bridge burned by General Mitchell, only the high stone piers 
remained ; and freight and passengers had to be conveyed 
over the river in that way. I remember a black ferryman 
whose stalwart form and honest speech interested me, and 
whose testimony with regard to his condition I thought worth 
noting down. 

" I works for my old master. He raised me. He 's a right 
kind master. I gits twenty dollars a month, and he finds me. 
Some of the masters about hyere is right tight on our people. 
Then thar 's a heap of us that won't work, and that steal from 
the rest. They 're my own color, but I can't help saying 
what 's true. They just set right down, thinking they 're 



COKVERSATIOK WITH A SOUTH CAROLINIAN. 291 

free, and waiting for luck to come to 'em." But he assured 
me that the most of his people were at work, and doing well. 

From the miserable little ferry-hoat we were landed on the 
other side in the midst of a drenching rain. To reach the cai's 
there was a steep muddy bank to climb. The baggage was 
brought up in wagons and pitched down into mud several 
inches deep, where passengers had to stand in the pouring 
shower and see to gettino; their checks. 

On the road to Tuscumbia I made the acquaintance of a 
young South Carolinian, whose character enlisted my sym- 
pathy, and whose candid conversation offers some points worth 
heeding. 

" I think it was in the decrees of God Almighty that slavery 
was to be abolished in this way ; and I don't murmur. We 
have lost our property, and we have been subjugated, but we 
brought it all on ourselves. Nobody that has n't experienced 
it knows anything about our suffering. We are discouraged : 
wc have nothing left to begin new with. I never did a day's 
work in my life, and don't know how to begin. You see me 
in these coarse old clothes ; well, I never wore coarse clothes in 
ray life before the war." 

Speaking of the negroes : " We can't feel towards them as 
you do ; I suppose we ought to, but 't is n't possible for us. 
They 've always been our owned servants, and we 've been 
used to having them mind us without a word of objection, and 
we can't bear anything else from them now. If that 's wrong, 
we 're to be pitied sooner than blamed, for it 's something we 
can't help. I was always kind to my slaves. I never whipped 
but two boys in my life, and one of them I Avhipped three 
weeks ago." 

" When he was a free man ? " 

" Yes ; for I tell you that makes no difference in our 
feeling towards them. I sent a boy across the country for 
some goods. He came back with half the goods he ought to 
have got for the money. I may as well be frank, — it was a 
gallon of whiskey. There were five gentlemen at the house, 
and I wanted the whiskey for them. I told Bob he stole it. 



292 BY RAILROAD TO CORINTH. 

Afterwards he came into the room and stood by the door, — a 
big, strong fellow, twenty-thi'ee years old. I said, ' Bob, 
what do you want ? ' He said, ' I want satisfaction about the 
whiskey.' He told me afterwards, he meant that he was n't 
satisfied I should think he had stolen it, and wanted to come 
to a good understanding about it. But I thought he wanted 
satisfaction gentlemen's fashion. I rushed for my gun. I 'd 
have shot him dead on the spot if my friends had n't held me. 
They said I 'd best not kill him, but that he ought to be 
whipped. I sent to the stable for a trace, and gave him a 
hundred and thirty with it, hard as I could lay on. I confess 
I did whip him unmercifully." 

" Did he make no resistance ? " 

" Oh, he knew better than that ; my friends stood by to see 
me through. I was wrong, I know, but I was in a passion. 
That 's the way Ave treat our servants, and shall treat them, 
until we can get used to the new order of things, — if we ever 
can." 

" In the mean while, according to your own showing, it 
■would seem that some restraint is necessary for you, and some 
protection for the negroes. On the whole, the Freedmeu's 
Bureau is a good thing, is n't it ? " 

He smiled : " May be it is ; yes, if the nigger is to be free, 
I reckon it is ; but it 's a mighty bitter thing for us." 

Then, speaking of secession : " I had never thought much 
about politics, though I believed our State was right when she 
went out. But when the bells were ringing, and everybody 
was rejoicing that she had seceded, a solemn feeling came over 
me, like I had never had in my life, and I could n't help feel- 
ing there was something wrong. I went through the war; 
there were thousands like me. In our hearts we thought 
more of the Stars and Stripes than we did of the old rag we 
were fio-hting under." 

He was going to Mississippi to look after some property left 
there before the war. But what he wished to do was to go 
North : " only I know I would n't be tolerated, — I know a 
man could n't succeed in business there, who was pointed out 
as a Rebel." 



THE CORINTHIAN STYLE. 293 

The same wish, quahfied by the same apprehension, was 
frequently expressed to me by the better class of young South- 
ern men ; and I always took pains to convince them tiiat they 
W'ould be welcomed and encouraged by all enlightened commu- 
nities in the Northern States. 

It was a dismal nioht in the cars. The weather chancred, 
and it grew suddenly very cold. Now the stove was red hot ; 
and now the fire was out, with both car-doors wide open at 
some stopping -place. 

At two in the morning we reached Corinth. A driver put 
me into his hack, and drove about town, through the freez- 
ino; mud, to find me a lodo-ino-. The hotels were full. The 
boarding-houses were full, — all but one, in which, with a 
fellow-traveller, I was fortunate enough at last to find a room 
with two beds. 

It was a large, lofty room, the door fifteen feet high from 
the floor, the walls eighteen feet. It had been an elegant 
apartment once ; but now the windows were broken, the 
plastering and stucco-work disfigured, the laths smashed in 
places, there were bullet-holes through the walls, and large 
apertures in the wainscots. The walls were covered with de- 
vices, showing that Federal soldiers had been at home there ; 
such as a shield, admirably executed, bearing the motto : 
" The Union, it must be preserved " ; " Heaven Bless our 
Native Land " ; " God of Battles, speed the Right " ; and so 
forth. 

The beds were tumbled, some travellers having just got out 
of them to take the train. A black woman came in to make 
them. The lady of the house also came in, — a fashionably 
bred Southern woman, who had been reduced, by the fortunes 
of the Rebellion, from the condition of a helpless mistress of 
many servants, to that of a boarding-house keeper. 

I asked for a single room, which I was somewhat curtly told 
I couldn't have. I then asked for more bedclothes, — for 
the weather continued to grow cold, and the walls of the room 
offered little protection against it. She said, " I reckon you 're 
mighty particular ! " I replied that she was quite correct in 



294 BY RAILROAD TO CORINTH. 

her reckoning, and insisted on the additional clothing. At 
last I got it, very fortunately ; for my room-mate, Avho did 
not make the same demand, nearly froze in the other bed be- 
fore daylight. 

In the mornino; a black man came in and made a fire. Then, 
before I was up, a black girl came in to bring a towel, and to 
break the ice in the wash-basin. That the water might not 
freeze again before I could use it, (for the fire, as some one 
has said, " could n't get a purchase on the cold,") I requested 
her to place the basin on the hearth ; also to shut the door ; 
for every person who passed in or out left all doors wide, afford- 
ing a free passage from my bed to the street. 

" You 're cold-natered, an't ye ? " said the girl, to whose 
experience my modest requests appeared unprecedented. 

Afterwards I went out to breakfast in a room that showed 
no chimney, and no place for a stove. The outer door was 
open much of the time, and when it was shut the wind came 
in through a great round hole cut for the accommodation of 
cats and dogs. This, be it understood, was a fiishionable 
Southern residence; and this had always been the dining- 
room, in winter the same as in summer, though no fire had 
ever been built in it. The evening before, the lady had said 
to me, " The Yankees are the cause that we have no better 
accommodations to offer you," and I had cheerfully forgiven 
her. But the Yankees were not the cause of our breakfasting 
in such a bleak apartment. 

Everybody at table was pinched and blue. The lady, white 
and delicate, sat wrapped in shawls. She was very bitter 
ao-ainst the Yankees, until I smilingly informed her that her 
remarks were particularly interesting to me, as I was a Yankee 
myself. 

" From what State are you, Sir ? " 
" From Massachusetts." 

u Oh ! " — with a shudder, — " they 're bad Yankees ! " 
" Bad enough, Heaven knows," I pleasantly replied ; 
" thoup-h, in truth. Madam, I have seen almost as bad people 
in other parts of the world." 



WASTEFUL HABITS OF SLAVERY. 295 

Tlic lady's husband changed the conversation by offerino' 
me a piece of venison which he had killed the day before. 
Deer were plenty in that region. As in Tennessee and Ala- 
bama, game of all kinds — deer, foxes, wild turkeys, wolves, — 
had increased greatly in Mississippi during the war ; the inhabi- 
tants having had something more formidable to hunt, or been 
hunted themselves. 

Mr. jNI owned two abandoned plantations : this was his 

town residence. He left it just before the battle of Shiloh, 
and it was occupied either by the Rebels or Yankees till the 
end of the war. He was originally opposed to the secession- 
leaders, but he afterwards went into the war, and lost every- 
thing, while they kept out of it and made money. 

The bullet-holes in the house were made by the Rebels 
firing at the Federals when they attacked the town. 

The family consisted of three persons, — Mr. M , his 

wife, and their little boy. Notwithstanding their poverty, 
they kept four black servants to wait upon them. They were 
paying a man fifteen dollars a month, a cook-woman the same, 
another woman six, and a girl six : total, forty-two dollars. It 
was mainly to obtain money to pay and feed these people that 
they had been compelled to take in lodgers. The possibility 
of o;ettino; alono; with fewer servants seemed never to have 

o o o 

occurred to them. Before the war they used to keep seven 
or eight. It was the old wasteful habit of slavery : masters 
were accustomed to have many servants about them, and 
each servant must have two or three to help him. 

The freedmen, I was told, were behaving very well. But 
the citizens were bitterly hostile to the negro garrison which 
then occupied Corinth. A respectable white man had recently 
been killed by a colored soldier, and the excitement occasioned 
by the circumstance was intense. It was called " a cold-blooded 
murder." Visiting head-quarters, I took pains to ascertain tlio 
facts in the case. They are in brief as follows : — 

The said respectable citizen was drunk. Going down the 
street, he staggered against a colored orderly. Cursing him, 
he said, " Why don't you get out of the way when you see a 



296 BY RAILROAD TO CORINTH. 

white man coming?" The orderly rephed, "There's room 
for you to pass." The respectable citizen then drew his re- 
volver, threatening to "shoot his damned black heart out." 
This occasioned an order for his arrest. He drew his revolver, 
with a similar threat, upon another soldier sent to take him, 
and was promptly shot down by him. Exit respectable citizen. 

Corinth is a bruised and battered village surrounded by 
stumpy fields, forts, earthworks, and graves. The stumpy 
fields are the sites of woods and groves cut away by the great 
armies. The graves are those of soldiers slain upon these hills. 
Beautiful woody boundaries sweep round all. 

There is nothing about the town especially worth visiting ; 
and my object in stopping there was to make an excursion into 
the country and visit the battle-field of Shiloh. I went to a 
livery-stable to engage a horse. I was told of frequent rob- 
beries that had been committed on that road, and urged by 
the stable-keeper to take a man with me ; but I wished to 
make the acquaintance of the country people, and thought I 
could do better without a companion. 



SCENE IN THE WOODS. 297 



CHAPTER XLI. 

ON HORSEBACK FROM CORINTH. 

Mounting a sober little iron-gray, I cantered out of Cor- 
inth, in a northeasterly direction, past the angles of an old fort 
overgrown with weeds, and entered the solitary wooded coun- 
tiy beyond. 

A short ride brought me to a broken bridge, hano-ino; its 
shaky rim over a stream breast-high to my horse. I paused 
on its brink, dubious ; until I saw two ladies, coming to town 
on horseback to do their shopping (the fashion of the country), 
rein boldly down the muddy bank, gather their skirts together, 
hold up their heels, and take like ducks to the water. I held 
up my heels and did likewise. This was the route of the 
great armies ; which whoso follows will find many a ruined 
bridge and muddy stream to ford. 

It was a clear, crisp winter's morning. The air Avas elastic 
and sparkling. The road wound among lofty trunks of oak, 
poplar, hickory, and gum, striped and gilded with the slanting 
early sunshine. Quails (called partridges in the South) flew 
up from the wayside ; turtle-doves flitted from the limbs above 
my head ; the woodpeckers screamed and tapped, greeting my 
approach with merry fife and drum. Cattle were grazing on 
the wild grass of the woods, and a solitary cow-bell rang. 

Two and a half miles from town I came to a steam saw-mill ; 
all about which the forest resounded with the noise of axes, 
the voices of negroes shouting to their teams, the fla]:)ping of 
boards thrown down, and the vehement buzz of the saw. 
This mill had but recently gone into operation ; being one of 
hundreds that had already been brought from the North, and 
set to work supplying the demand for lumber, and repairing 
the damages of war. 



298 ON HORSEBACK FROM CORIXTH. 

Near by was a new house of rougli logs with the usual great 
opening through it. It was situated in the midst of ruins 
which told too plain a story. Tying my horse to a bush, I 
entered, and found one division of the house occupied by ne- 
gro servants, the other by two lonely white women. One 
of these was young ; the other aged, and bent with grief and 
years. She sat by the fire, knitting, wrapped in an ancient 
shawl, and having a white handkerchief tied over her head. 
The walls and roof were full of chinks, the wind blew through 
the room, and she crouched shivering over the hearth. 

She offered me a chair, and a negro woman, from the other 
part of the house, brought in wood, which she heaped in the 
great open fireplace. 

" Sit up, stranger," said the old lady. " I have n't 
the accommodations for guests I had once ; but you 're 
welcome to what I have. I owned a beautiful place here 
before the war, — a fine house, negro quarters, an orchard, 
and garden, and everything comfortable. The Yankees came 
along and destroyed it. They did n't leave me a fence, — not 
a rail nor a pale. If I had stayed here, they would n't have 
injured me, and I should have saved my house ; but I was 
advised to leave. I have come back here to spend my days in 
this cabin. I lost everything, even my clothes ; and I 'm too 
old to begin life again." 

INIyself a Yankee, what could I say to console her ? 

A mile and a half farther on, I came to another log-house, 
and stopped to inquire my way of an old man standing by the 
gate. His countenance was hard and stern, and he eyed me, 
as I thought, with a sinister expression. 

" You are a stranger in this country ? " I told him I was. 
"I allow you 're from the North?" — eying me still more 
suspiciously. 

" Yes," I replied ; " I am from New England." 

" I 'm glad to see ye. Alight. It 's a right cool morning : 
come into the house and warm." 

I confess to a strong feehng of distrust, as I looked at him. 
I resolved, however, to accept his invitation. He showed me 



"OLD LEE'S" ADVENTURES. 299 

into a room, which appeared to be the kitchen and slce})ing- 
room of a large family. Two young women and several chil- 
dren were crowded around the fireplace, while the door of 
the house was left Avide open, after the fashion of doors in the 
South country. There was something stewing in a skillet on 
the hearth ; which I noticed, because the old man, as he sat 
and talked with me, spat his tobacco-juice oyer it (not always 
with accuracy) at the back-log. I remarked that the country 
appeared yery quiet. 

" Quiet, to what it was," said the old man, with a wicked 
twinkle of the eye. " You 'ye probably heard of some of the 
murders and robberies through here." 

I said I had heard of some such irregularities. 

" I 've been robbed time and again. I 'ye had nine horses 
and mules stole." 

" By whom ? " 

" The bushwhackers. They 'ye been here to kill me three 
or four times ; but, as it happened, the killing was on t' other 
side." 

" Who were these men ? " 

" Some on 'em belonged in Massissippi, and some on 'em in 
Tennessy. They come to my house of a Tuesday night, last 
Feb'uary. They rode up to the house, and surrounded it, a 
dozen or fifteen of 'em. ' Old Lee ! ' they shouted, ' we want 
ye ! ' It had been cloudy 'arly in the evening, but it had 
fa'red up, and as I looked out thro' the chinks in the logs, I 
could see 'em moving around. 

" ' Come out. Old Lee ! Ave 've business with ye ! ' 

" ' You 've no honest business this hour o' the night,' I 
says. 

" ' Come out, or we '11 fire your house.' 

" ' Stand back, then,' I says, ' while I open the doo'.' 

" I opened it a crack, but instead of going out, I just put 
out the muzzle of my gun, and let have at the fust man. 

" ' Boys ! I 'm shot ! ' he says. I 'd sent a slug plumb 
thro' his body. Whilst the others was getting him away, I 
loaded up again. In a little while they come back, mad as 



300 ON HORSEBACK FROM CORINTH. 

cleA'ils. I did n't wait for 'em to order me out, but fired as 
they come up to the doo'. I liit one of 'em in the thigh. 
After that they went off, and I did n't hear any more of 'em 
that night." 

" What became of the wounded men ? " 

" The one I shot thro' the body got well. The other 
died." 

" How did you learn ? " 

" They was all neighbors of mine. They lived only a few 
miles from here, over the Tennessy line. That was Tuesday 
night ; and the next Sunday night the gang come again. I 
was prepared for 'em. I had cut a trap through the floo' ; 
and I had my grandson with me, a boy about twelve year old ; 
and he had a gun. We 'd just got comfortably to bed, when 
some men rode up to the gate, and hollah'd, ' Hello ! ' several 
times. I told my wife to ask 'em what they wanted. They 
said they Avas strangers, and had lost their road and wanted 
the man of the house to come out. I drapped thro' the hole 
in the floo', and told my wife to tell 'em I wa'njt in the house, 
and they must go somewhar else. 

" '' We '11 see if he 's in the house,' they said. The house 
is all open underneath, and I reckoned I 'd a good position ; 
but befo'e I got a chance at ary one, they 'd bust in. They 
went to rummaging, and threatening my wife, and skeering the 
children. I could hear 'em tramping over my head ; till bime- 
by the clock struck ; and I heerd one of 'em sw'ar, ' Ten 
o'clock, and nary dollar yet ! ' After that, I could see 'em 
outside the house ; hunting around for me, as I allowed. I 
fired on one. ' My God ! ' I heered him say, ' he 's killed 
me ! ' I then took my grandson's gun, and fired again. Such 
a rushing and scampering you never heered. They run off, 
leaving one of their men lying dead right out here before the 
doo'. We found him thar the next mornino;. He laid thar 
nigh on to two days, when some of his friends come and took 
him and buried him.'' 

" Why did those men wish to murder you ? " 

" They had a spite agin me, because they said I was a Union 
man." 



A ROADSIDE ENCOUNTER. 301 

"They called him ii Yankee," said one of the young 
women. 

" But you are not a Yankee." 

" I was born in Tennessy, and have lived either in Tennessy 
or Massissippi all my days. But I never was a secessioner ; I 
went ai^in the war ; and I had two son-in-law's in the Federal 
army. Both these girls' husbands was fighting the Rebels, and 
that 's what made 'em hate me. They was determined to kill 
me ; and after that last attempt on my life, I refugeed. 1 went 
to the Yankees, and did n't come back till the war wound up. 
There 's scoundrels watching for a chance to bushwhack me 

now." 

" Old Lee 'd go up mighty quick, if they wa'n't afeared," 
remarked one of the daughters. 

"I'm on hand for 'em," said the old man, — and now I 
understood that wicked sparkle of his eye. " Killing is good 
for 'em. A lead bullet is better for getting rid of 'em than any 
amount of silver or gold, and a heap cheaper ! " 

Two miles north of Old Lee's I came to the State boundary. 
While I was still in Mississippi, I saw, just over the line, in 
Tennessee, a wild figure of a man riding on before me. He 
was mounted on a raw-boned mule, and wore a flapping gray 
blanket which gave him a fantastic appearance. The old 
hero's story had set me thinking of bushwhackers, and I half 
fancied this solitary horseman — or rather mule-man — to be 
one of that amiable gentry. He had pursued me from Corinth, 
and passed me unwittingly while 1 was sitting in Old Lee's 
kitchen. He was riding fiist to overtake me. Or perhaps he 
was only an innocent country fellow returning from town. I 
switched on, and soon came near enough to notice that the 
mule's tail was fancifully clipped and trimmed to resemble a 
rope with a tassel at the end of it ; also that the rider's face 
was mysteriously muffled in a red handkerchief. 

I was almost at his side, when hearing voices in the woods 
behind me, I looked around, and saw two more mounted men 
coming after us at a swift gallop. The thought flashed through 
my mind that those were the fellow's accomplices. One to 



302 o:n' horseback from corinth. 

one had not seemed to me very formidable ; but three to one 
would not be so pleasant. I pressed my iron-gray immediately 
alongside the tassel-tailed mule, and accosted the rider, deter- 
mined to learn Avhat manner of man he was before the others 
arrived. The startled look he gave me, and the blue nose, 
with its lucid pendent drop, that peered out of the sanguinary 
handkerchief, showed me that he was as harmless a traveller 
as myself He was a lad about eighteen years of age. He 
had tied up his ears, to defend them from the cold, and the 
bandage over them had prevented him from hearing my ap- 
proach until I was close upon him. 

" It 's a kule day," he remarked, with numb lips, as he 
reined his mule aside to let me pass at a respectful distance, 
— for it was evident he regarded me with quite as much dis- 
trust as I had him. 

At the same time the two other mounted men came rush- 
ing upon us, through the half-frozen puddles, A\'ith splash and 
clatter and loud boisterous oaths ; and one of them drew from 
his pocket, and brandished over the tossing mane of his horse, 
something so like a pistol that I half expected a shot. 

" How are ye ? " said he, halting his horse, and spattering 
me all over with muddy water. " Right cold morning ! Hello, 
Zeek ! " to the rider of the tassel-tailed mule. " I did n't 
know ye, with yer face tied up that fashion. Take a drink ? " 
Zeek declined. " Take a drink, stranger?" And he offered 
me the pistol, which proved to be a flask of whiskey. I de- 
clined also. Upon which the fellow held the flask unsteadily 
to his own lips for some seconds, then passed it to his com- 
panion. After drinking freely, they spurred on again, with 
splash and laughter and oaths, leaving Zeek and me riding 
alone together. 



ZEEK'S ACCOUNT. 303 



CHAPTER XLII. 

ZEEK. 

" Did n't I see your horse tied to Old Lee's gate ? " said 
Zeek. And that led to a discussion of the old hero's char- 
acter. 

" Is he a Union man ? " 

" I kain't say.; hut that 's the story they tell on him. One 
of the men he killed was one of our neighhors ; a man we 
used to consider right respectable; but he tuke to thieving 
during the wa', and got to be of no account. That was the 
way with a many I know. You may stop at a house now 
whur they '11 steal your horse, and like as not rob and murder 

ye." 

Zeek told me he lived on the edge of the battle-field ; and I 
engaged him to guide me to it. He thought I must be going 
to search for the body of some friend who fell there. When 
I told him I was from the North, and that my object was 
simply to visit the battle-field, he looked at me with amaze- 
ment. 

" I should think you 'd be afraid to be riding alone in this 
country ! If 't was known you was a Yankee, and had 
money about you, I allow you 'd get a shot from behind some 
bush." 

" I think the men who would serve me such a trick are very 

few." 

" Thar was right smart of 'em befo'e the wa' closed. They 
'd just go about robbing, — hang an old gray-haired man right 
up, till he 'd tell whur his money was. They called them- 
selves Confederates, but they was just robbers. They 've got 
killed off, or have gone off, or run out, till, as you say, there 
an't but few left." 



304 ZEEK. 

With these exceptions, Zeek praised highly the middhng 
class of people who inhabited that region. 

" Some countries, a pore man ain't respected no mo'e 'n a 
dog. 'Tan't so hyere. Man may be plumb pore, but if he 's 
honest, he 's thought as much of as anybody. Mo'e 'n two 
thirds of 'em can read and write." Before the war, they used 
to have what they called " neighborhood schools." The 
teacher was supported by the pupils, receiving two dollars a 
month for each : he taught only in winter, and was fortunate 
if he could secure forty pupils. 

Flocks of sparrows flew up from the bushes or hopped along 
the ground. There were bluebirds also ; and I noticed one 
or two robins. " We never see robins hyere only in winter," 
said Zeek. 

Green bunches of mistletoe grew on the leafless brown trees, 
— a striking feature of Southern woods in winter. " It 's a 
curiosity, the way it grows," said Zeek. " It just grows on 
the tops of trees, without no rute, nor nothing. It 's a rare 
chance you find it on the hills ; it grows mostly on the bottoms 
whur thar 's mo'e moisture in the air." It was a beautiful 
siffht to me, ridino; under its verdant tufts, sometimes so low 
on the boughs that, by rising in the stirrups, I could pluck 
sprigs of it, with their translucent pearly berries, as I passed. 
But Zeek was wrong in saying it had no root. It is supposed 
to be propagated by birds wiping their bills upon the limbs of 
trees, after eating the berries. A stray seed thus deposited 
germinates, and the penetrating root feeds upon the juices that 
flow between the bark and the wood of the tree. 

We passed but few farm-houses, and those were mostly built 
of logs. We crossed heavy lines of Beauregard's breastworks ; 
and could have traced the route of the great armies by the 
bones of horses, horned cattle, and mules we saw whitening in 
the woods and by the roadside. A crest of hilly fields showed 
us a mao-nificent sweep of level wooded country on the west 
and south, like a brown wavy sea, with tossed tree-tops for 
breakers. 

" Mighty pore soil along hyere," observed Zeek. When I 



ACROSS OWL CREEK. 805 

told him that it was as good as much of the soil of New 
England, which farmers never thought of cultivating without 
using manures, he said, " When our land gits as pore as that, 
we just turn it right out, and cle'r again. We don't allow we 
can afford to manure. But No'th Car'Iinians come in liyere, 
and take up the land turned out so, and go to manuring it, 
and raise right smart truck on it." 

As I was inclined to ride faster than Zeek, he looked criti- 
cally at my horse, and remarked, " I don't reckon you give 
less 'n a dollar a day for that beast." I said I gave more than 
that. " I ride my beasts hard enough," he replied, " but I 
reckon if I paid a dollar a day for one, I 'd ride him a heap 
harder ! " 

He had been down to the saw-mill, to get pay for a yoke of 
oxen his father had sold. " I started by sun-up, and got thar 
agin nine o'clock." It was now afternoon, and he was hungry 
and cold. He therefore proposed to me to go home with him 
and get warm, before visiting the battle-field. 

It was after two o'clock when we came to a hilly field cov- 
ered with rotting clothes. 

" Beauregard's troops come plumb up this road, and slept 
hyere the night befo'e the battle. They left their blankets and 
knapsacks, and after they got brushed out by the Yankees, 
the second day, they did n't wait to pick 'em up again." 

We entered the woods beyond, directing our course towards 
the Avestern edge of the battle-field ; and, after riding some 
distance, forded Owl Creek, — a narrow, but deep and muddy 
stream. Zeek's home was in view from the farther bank ; a 
log-house, with the usual great opening through the middle ; 
situated on the edge of a pleasant oak-grove strewn with rus- 
tling leaves, and enclosed, with its yard and out-houses, by a 
Vircrinia rail-fence. 



20 



306 ZEEK'S FAJVIILT. 



CHAPTER XLIII. 

ZEEK'S FAMILY. 

" Alight ! " said Zeek, dismountino; at tlie ^ate. 

I remonstrated against leavino; the animals nncovered in tlie 
cold, but he said it was the way people did in that country ; 
and it was not until an hour later that he found it convenient 
to give them shelter and food. 

We were met inside the gate by a sister of the young 
man's, a girl of fifteen, in a native Bloomer dress that fell 
just below the knees. As I entered the space between the 
two divisions of the house, I noticed that doors on both sides 
were open, one leading to the kitchen, where there was a 
great fire, and the other to the sitting-room, where there was 
another great fire, in large old-fashioned fireplaces. 

Zeek took me into the sitting-room, and introduced me to 
his mother. There were two beds in the back corners of the 
room. The uncovered floor Avas of oak ; the naked walls 
were of plain hewn logs ; the sleepers and rough boards of 
the chamber floor constituted the ceiling. There Avere clothes 
drying on a pole stretched across the room, and hanks of dyed 
cotton thread on a bayonet thrust into a chink of the chimney. 
Cold as the day was, the door by which we entered was never 
shut, and sometimes another door was open, letting the wintry 
wind sweep through the house. 

Zeek's mother went to see about getting us some dinner ; 
and his father came in from the woods, where he had been 
chopping, and sat in the chimney-corner and talked with me : 
a lean, bent, good-humored, hard-working, sensible sort of 
man. He told me he had five hundred acres of land, but 
only thirty-six under cultivation. He and Zeek did the work ; 
they had never owned negroes. 



TENNESSEE METHODS. 307 

" Tliree or four niggers is too much money for a pore man 
to invest in that way : tliey may He down and die, and then 
whur's yer money ? Thar Avas five niggers owned in Mid- 
dle Tennessy," he added, " to one in this part of the State." 

Speaking of his farm, he said it was mighty good land till 
it wore out. He had raised two bales of cotton on three and 
a half acres, the past season. It was equally good for other 
crops. "I make some corn, some pork, some cotton, and a 
mule or two, every year : I never resk all on one thing." 

Looking at the open outside doors and the great roaring 
fires, I said I should think wood must be a very important 
item with Tennessee farmers. 

" Yes, I reckon we burn two cords a week, such weather 
as this, just for fire, and as much more in the kitchen. We 've 
wood enough. As we turn out old land, we must cle'r new ; 
then Ave have the advantage of the ashes for ley and soap." 

" But the labor of chopping so much wood must be consid- 
erable." 

" Oh, I can chop enough in a day, or a day and a half, to 
last a week. Winters, farmers don't do much else but feed 
and set wood." 

I said I thought they would some day regret not having 
kept up their cleared fields by proper cultivation, and pre- 
served their forests. 

" I allow we shall. I 've just returned from a trip up into 
Middle Tennessy" (accented on the first syllable), " whur 
I used to live ; they burnt up their timber thar, just as we 're 
doing hyere, and now they 're setting down and grieving be- 
cause they 've no wood. They save everything thar, to the 
trunks and crotches. We just leave them to rot, or log 'em 
up in heaps and burn 'em, whur the land 's to be cle'red ; 
and use only the clean limbs, that chop easy and don't require 
much splitting." He broke forth in ]n-aise of a good warm 
fire. " Put on a big green back-log and Ijuild agin it, — that 's 
our fashion." 

Zeek's mother came to announce our dinner. I crossed the 
open space, pausing only to wash my hands and face in a tin 



308 ZEEK'S FxVMILY. 

l)asin half filled with water and pieces of ice, and entered the 
kitchen. It was a less pretentious apartment than the sitting- 
room. There was no window in it; but Avide chinks between 
the logs, and two open doors, let in a sufficiency of daylight, 
and more than a sufficiency of cold wind. There was a bed in 
one corner, and a little square pine table set in the centre of 
the room. A gourd of salt hung by the chimney, and a home- 
made broom leaned beside it. I noticed a scanty supply of 
crockery and kitchen utensils on pegs and shelves. 

The table was neatly set, with a goodly variety of dishes for 
a late chnner in a back-country farm-house. I remember a 
plate of fried pork ; fricaseed gray squirrel (cold) ; boiled 
" back of hog " (warmed up) ; a pitcher of milk ; cold bis- 
cuit, cold corn bread, and " sweet bread" (a name given to a 
plain sort of cake). 

We could liave dined very comfortably but for tlie open 
doors. Blowing in at one and out at the other, and circu- 
lating through numberless cracks between the logs, the gale 
frisked at will about our legs, and made our very hands numb 
and noses cold wdiile we ate. The fire was of no more use 
to us than one built out-of-doors. The victuals that had 
come upon the table warm were cold before they reached our 
mouths. The river of pork-fat which the kind lady poured 
over my plate, congealed at once into a brownish-gray deposit, 
like a spreading sand-l)ar. I enjoyed an advantage over Zeek, 
for I had taken the precaution to put on my overcoat and to 
secure a back seat. He sat opposite me, with his back to- 
wards the windward door, where the blast, pouncing in upon 
him, pierced and pinched him without mercy. He had not 
yet recovered from the chill of his long winter-day's ride ; and 
his lank, shivering frame, and blue, narrow, puckered face 
under its thin thatch of tow (combed straight down, and cut 
square and short across his forehead from ear to ear), pre- 
sented a picture at once astonishing and ludicrous. 

" Have vou got warm yet, Zeek ? " I cheerfully inquired. 

" No ! " — shuddering. " I 'm plumb chilly ! 1 'm so kule 
I kain't eat." 



FARM AND STOCK. 309 

" I should tliink you would be more comfortable with tliat 
door closed," I mildly suggested. 

He slowly turned his head half round, and as slowly turned 
it back again, with another shiver. The possibility of actually 
shutting the door seemed scarcely to penetrate the tow-thatch. 
I suppose such an act would have been unprecedented in that 
country, — one which all conservative persons would have 
shaken their heads at as a dangerous innovation. 

Zeek becjaed to be excused, he was so kule ; and taking a 
piece of squirrel in one hand, and a biscuit in the other, went 
and stood bv the fire. I found that he was averse to going 
out again that day : it was now late in the afternoon, and our 
poor animals had not yet been fed, or even taken in from where 
they stood curled up with the cold by the gate : I accordingly 
proposed to the old folks to spend the night with them, and 
to take Zeek with me over the battle-field in the morning. 
This being agreed upon, the fither invited me to go out and 
see his stock, and his two bags of cotton. 

In the j^ard near the house was the smoke-house, or meat- 
house, a blind hut built of small logs, answering die purpose 
of a cellar, — for in that country cellars are unknown. In it 
the family provisions were stored. Under an improvised shelter 
at one corner was the cotton, neatly packed in two bales of 
five hundred pounds each, and looking handsome as a lady in 
its brown sacking and new hoops. The hoops were a sort 
of experiment, which it was thought would prove successful. 
Usually the sacking and ropes about a bale of cotton cost as 
much by the pound as the cotton itself; and, to economize 
that expense, planters were beginning to substitute hickory 
hoops for ropes. The owner was very proud of those two 
bales, picked by his own hands and his children's, and pre- 
pared for mai'ket at a gin and press in the neighborhood ; and 
he hoped to realize five hundred dollars for them when thrown 
upon the market. A planter of a thousand bales, made by 
the hands of slaves he was supposed to own, and ginned and 
pressed on his own plantation, could not have contemplated his 
crop with greater satisfaction, in King Cotton's haughtiest days. 



310 ZEEK'S FAMILY. 

Near the meat-house was a liuge ash-leach. Then there was 

a simple horse-mill for crushino; soro-lmm, — for Mr. , like 

most Southern farmers, made sufficient syrup for home con- 
sumption, besides a little for market. Under a beech-tree was 
a beautiful spring of water. A rail-fence separated the door- 
yard from the cattle-yard, where were flocks of hens, geese, 
ducks, and turkeys, cackling, quacking, and gobbling in such 
old familiar fashion that I was made to feel strangely at home 
in their company. Tiiere were bleating, hungry calves, and 
good-natured surly bulls, and patient cows waiting to be milked 
and fed, and a fimily of nncurried colts and young mules, and 
beautiful spotted goats, with their kids, and near by a hog-lot 
full of lean and squealing swine. Speaking of the goats, 

Mr. said there was no money in them, but that he kept 

them for the curiosity of the thing. 

There was no barn on the place. The nearest a]:)proach to 
it was the stable, or " mule-pen," constructed of logs with lib- 
eral openings between them, through one of which my lone- 
some iron-gray put his nose as I came near, and whinnied his 
humble petition for fodder. There he was, stabled with mules, 
unblanketed, and scarcely better oflP than when tied to the 
gate-post, — for the wind circulated almost as freely througli 
the rude enclosure as it did in Mrs. 's kitchen. Such hos- 
pitalities were scarcely calculated to soothe the feelings of a 
proud and well-bred hoi'se ; but the iron-gray accepted them 
philosophically. 

"Where is your hay?" I inquired. 

" We make no hay in this country. Our stock feeds out on 
the hills, or browses in the woods or cane-brakes, all winter. 
When we have to feed 'em, we throw out a little corn, fodder, 
and shucks." 

A loft over the mule-pen was filled with stalks and unhusked 
corn. Zeek went up into it, and threw down bundles of the 
former, and filled baskets of the latter, for his father to feed 
out to the multitude of waiting mouths. 

I inquired particularly regarding the large quantities of nat- 
ural manures which ought to accumulate in such a farm-yard. 



MAN^URES. 3X1 

" We just throw tliem out, and let them get trampled and 
washed away. We can't haul out and spread. It 's the hard- 
est work we ever did, and Tennesseans can't get used to it." 

The yard was on a side hill, where every rain nuist wash it, 
and the mule-pen was conveniently situated near the brink 
of a gully, from which every freshet would sweep what was 
thrown into it. In A-ain I remonstrated against this system of 

farming : Mr. replied that he was brought up to it, and 

could not learn another. 



ai2 A NIGHT IN A TENNESSEE FARM-HOUSE. 



CHAPTER XLIV. 

A NIGHT IN A TENNESSEE FARM-HOUSE. 

We went into the house, and gathered around the sitthig- 
room fire for a social evening's talk. As it grew dark, the doors 
were closed, and we sat in the beautiful firelight. And now 
I learned a fact, and formed a theory, concerning doors. 

The fact was this : not a door on the premises had either 
lock or bolt. Mule-pen, meat-house, and both divisions of the 
dwelling-house, were left every night without other fastening 
than the rude wooden latches of the country. This was a 
very common practice among the small farmers of that region. 
"It was a rare chance we ever used to hear of anything being 
stolen. My house was never robbed, and I never lost a mule 
or piece of meat till after war broke out." 

The closing of the doors at dark, not because the weather 
had grown colder, but apparently because there was no longer 
any daylight to admit, suggested to my mind the origin of the 
universal Southern custom of leaving doors open during the 
severest winter weather. The poor whites and negroes live 
very generally in huts and cabins without windows. Even 
the houses of the well-to-do small farmers are scantily supphed 
with these modern luxuries. The ancestors of the wealtliier 
middle class dwelt not many years ago in similar habitations. 
Such is the strength of habit, and so strong the conser- 
vatism of imitative mankind, that I suppose a public statute 
would be necessary to compel now the shutting of doors of 
windowed houses against the j^iercing winds of the cold sea- 
son ; just as, according to Charles Lamb, the Chinese people's 
method of obtaining roast pig by burning their dwellings over 
a tender sucklino- — that ravishing delicacv having been acci- 
dentally discovered to the Avorld by the conflagration of a 



COMMON PREJUDICE AGAIKST KEGROES. 313 

house with its adjoining pig-sty — liad to be stopped by an 
imperial edict. 

Wc sat without lamp or candle in the red gleaming fire- 
light ; and the daces of the little girls, who had been shrinking 
and shivering with the cold all day, took on a glow of comfort 
and jileasure, now that the house was shut. However, I could 
still feel gusts of the wintry air blowing upon me from open- 
ings between the logs. I have been in many Southern flirm- 
houses ; and I have heard the custom of open doors com- 
mended as necessary to give plenty of air and to toughen the 
inmates by wholesome exposure ; but I do not now remember 
the habitation that was not more than sufficiently supplied with 
air, both for ventilating and toughening purposes, with every 
door closed. 

Mr. talked quite sensibly of the origin and results of 

the war. He and the majority of the farmers in that region 
were originally Union men, and remained so to the last. " Some 
of the hottest secesh, too, got to be right good Union before 
the wa' Avas over, — they found the Yankees treated 'em so 
much better 'n they expected, and the Rebs so much wuss." 

He accepted emancipation. " The way I look at it, the 
thing had growed up till it got ripe, and it fell on us in this 
age. It was the universal opinion before the wa', that the 
country would be a heap better off without niggers. But we 
could n't go with the Abolitionists of the No'th, nor with the 
secesh fire-eaters. We stood as it were between two fires. 
That was what made it so hard." 

But he shared the common prejudice against permitting the 
negroes to remain and enjoy the land. " 'T won't do to have 
'em settled among us. 'T would, if everybody was honest. 
But the whites, I 'm ashamed to say it, will just prey upon 
them. They 're bound to be the poorest set of vagabonds that 
ever walked the earth. O yes, they '11 work. It 's just this 
way, — they '11 work if they have encouragement ; and no 
man will without, unless he 's driven. All around hyere, and 
up in Middle Tennessy, whur I 've been, they 're doing right 
smart. But it has seemed to bear on their minds that they 



314 A NIGHT IN A TENNESSEE FARM-HOUSE. 

wanted to rent land, and have a little place of tlieir own. 
They ^et treated right rongh by some nnprincipled men, and 
by some that onght to know how to give 'em Christian treat- 
ment, now they 're free. But the truth is, a white man can't 
take im])udence from 'em. It may be a long ways removed 
from what you or I would think impudence, but these pas- 
sionate men call it that, and pitch in." 

" Blair, an old nigger down to the saw-mill whur I went 
to-day," said Zeek, " got his head split open with an axe by a 
man two days ago. He said Old Blair sassed him. He fell 
plumb crossways of the fire, and they had to roll him off." 

" That 's the way," said Mr. . " Befo'e the wa' the 

owner of the nigger 'd have had the man arrested. He was 
so much property. It was as if you should kill or maim my 
horse. But now the nigger has no protection." 

" That 's very true, if the government does not protect 
him." 

We talked of the depreciations of the two armies. " I never 

feared one party more than the other," said Mrs. . " If 

anything, the Rebels was worst." 

" Both took bosses and mules," said Mr. . " At fust, 

I used to try to get my propert}' back. I 'd go to head- 
quarters and get authority to take it whur I could find it ; but 
always by that time 't would be hocus-pocussed out of the way. 
It was all an understood thing. Aside from that, the regular 
armies, neither of them, did n't steal from us. But as soon 
as they 'd passed, then the thieves would come in. They 'd 
take what we had, and cus us for not having nio'e. Sheep, 
chickens, geese, corn, watches, and money, — whatever they 
could lay hands on suffered. Men never thought of carrying 
money about them, them times, but always give it to the wee- 
mun to hide. Thar was scouts belonging to both armies, but 
which was mo'e robbers than scouts, that was the scourge of 
the country. If a man had anything, they 'd be sure to h'ist 
it. They 'd pretend to come with an order to search for 
o-ov'ment arms. It was only an excuse for robbing. They 
'd search for gov'ment arms in a tin-cup. They had what 



CRUELTY OF SCOUTS. 315 

they called a cash rope. That was a rope to slip ahout a 
man's neck, and swing him np with, till he 'd tell whur his 
money was. They had a gimblet, which they said was for 
boring for treasures ; and they always knew just whur to 
bore to find 'cm. That was right hyere " (ii^ a man's tem- 
ples). " They 'd bore into him, till he could n't stand the 
pain, then if he had any money he 'd be only too glad to give 
it up. These was generally Confederates. We was pestered 
powerful by 'em. But Harrison's scouts was as bad as any. 
They pretended to be acting on the Union side. They was 
made up of Southern men, mostly from INIississippi, Alabama, 
and Tennessy. They was a torn-down bad set of men ; bad 
as the Rebs. They 'd no respect for anybody or anything. 
One Sunday a neighbor of mine met them coming up the 
road. He knew them very well ; and he said to them, it was 
Sunday, and he hoped thar 'd be no disturbances that day ; the 
people, he said, had all gone to preaching. That 's right, they 
said : they believed in means of grace ; and they asked whur 
the preaching was to be, and who was going to preach. He 
told them, and said he was going thar himself. They said 
they believed a man did right to go to pi'eaching, though they 
was deprived of that privilege themselves. He told 'em he 
.hoped they 'd look more after their eternal interest in futur', 
and they said they intended to, and inquired mo'e particular 
whur the preaching was to be, and thanked him, and rode on. 
They then just went to plund'ring, cl'aring out his house 
about the fust one. Then they said they thought they 'd take 
his advice, and look a little after their eternal interests, and go 
and hunt up the preaching. Then they just went over and 
robbed the meeting. There was seventeen horses with side- 
saddles on 'em ; the men generally Avent on foot, but the 
weemun rode. They tuke every horse, and left the weemun 
to walk home, and carry their saddles, or leave 'em." 

" Some Rebel bushwhackers," said Mrs. , " went to the 

house of a woman I know as well as I know my own sisters, 
and because she would n't give 'em her money — she had it in a 
belt under her dress tied around her waist — they knocked her 



316 A IJTIGHT IN A TENNESSEE FARM-HOUSE. 

eye out ; then they took their knives, and cut right through to 
her flesh, cutting her money out." 

Both Zeek and his father kept out of the Avar. The latter 
was too old, and the former too young, to be swept in by the 
conscription act. " Zeek escaped well ! " said the mother, 
Avith a gleam of exultation. " But I was just in dread he 'd 
be taken ! " And I sathered that a little innocent maternal 
fiction, as to his years, had been employed to shield him. 

" Some of the hardest times we saw, hyere in the Union 
parts of Tennessy, was when they come hvmting conscripts. 
They got up some dogs now that would track a man. One 
of my neighbors turned and shot a hound that was after him, 
and got away. The men come up, and they was torn-down 
mad when they saw the dog killed. They pressed a man and 
his Avagon to take the carcase back to toAvn ; they lived in 
AdamsA'ille, eight miles from hyere. They stopped to my 
house over night, going back." 

" They just bemoaned the loss of that dog," said Mrs. . 

" They said they 'd sooner have lost one of their company." 

" They got back to toAvn, and they buried that dog now 
with great solemnity. They put a monument over his graA'e, 
Avith an epitaph on it. But some of the conscripts they 'd 
been hunting, dug him up, and hung him to a tree, and shot 
him full of bullets, and made a Avriting Avliich they pinned to 
the tree, Avith these Avords on it : ' We 7/ serve the oivners of the 
dogs the same to ay next.'' " 

"Was Owl Crick swimming to-day, Zeek?" Mrs. 

asked ; meaning, was it so high that our beasts had to SAvim. 
And that led to a remark as to the origin of the name. 

" Thar 's right smart of owls on this Crick," said Mr. ; 

" sometimes Ave 're pestered powerful by 'em ; they steal our 
chickens so." 

Just then Ave heard a Avild squaAA'king in the direction of the 
hen-roost. " Thar 's one catching a chicken noAV," quietly 
obserA'ed the farmer. I certainly expected to see either him 
or Zeek run out to the poor thing's rescue. But they sat un- 
concernedly in their chairs. It Avas the chicken's business, not 



A PIT TO HIDE IN. 317 

theirs. The squawknig grew fainter and fainter, and then 
ceased. 

" The people all through this section I allow will never 

forget the battle," said Mr. . " Friday night Johnson's 

left wing Avas at Brooks's, — the last house you ])assed to-day 
befo'e you fo'ded Owl Crick. The woods was just full of 
men. They took Brooks, to make him show 'em the way. 
He said he did n't know the woods, and that was the fact ; 
but they swo'e he lied, and he must go with 'em, and they 'd 
shoot him if he led 'em amiss. He was in a powerful bad fix ; 
but, lucky for him they had n't gone fur when they met 
Damniern, an old hunter, that knew every branch and tliicket 
in the country. So they swapped off Brooks for Dammern. 

" The Federals was on the other side of us, and I allowed 
there was going to be a battle. And it looked to me as if it 
was going to be right on my farm." 

" That was the awfulest night I ever had in my life," said 

Mrs. . " My husband was for leaving at once. But it 

did n't appear like I could bear the idea of it. Though what 
to do Avith ourselves if we staid ? We 've no cellar, and if 
we 'd had one, and got into It, a shell might have set the house 
afire, and buried us under it. So I proposed we should dig a 
hole to get into. He allowed that mio;ht be the best thino;. 
So the next morning I got ofl!" betimes, and went over and 
counselled with our neighbors through the grove, and told 'em 
I thought it would be a grand idee to dig a pit for both our 
families, and so they came over hyere and went to digging." 

" You never see men work so earnest as we did till about 

'leven o'clock," said Mr. . " Finally we got the pit dug, 

between the house and the spring. But when it was done it 
looked so much like a grave the weemun dreaded to get into 
it, and so much like a breastwork we men was afraid both 
armies would just play their artilleries onto it. So my Avife 
give her consent we should take to the swamps. But what to 
do with the pit ? for if it got shelled, the house would be de- 
stroyed ; and then thar was danger the armies would use the 
hole to bury their dead in, and the bodies would spoil our 



318 A NIGHT IN A TENNESSEE FARM-HOUSE. 

spring. And as we could n't take the pit Avith us, it appeared 
like thar was but one thing to do. So we put in and worked 
right earnest till we 'd filled it up again. A rain had come on 
Friday night, and bogged down some of Johnson's artillery be- 
tween hyere and Corinth, and that 's my understanding why the 
fight did n't come off Saturday. That give us time to git off. 
I took my family three miles back to a cabin in the swamp, and 
thar they staid till it was all over ; only Zeek and me come 
back for some loads of goods. We took one load Saturday, 
and come for another Monday. That was the second day of 
the fight. We found the place covered with Rebel soldiers. 
The battle was going on then. The roar of artillery was so 
loud you could n't converse at one end of the house, whur the 
echo was. The musketry sounded like a roaring wind ; the 
artillery was like peals of thunder. 

" Thar was one family caught on the battle-field. They 
had staid, because the man was laying dangerously sick, and 
they dreaded to move him. After the fighting begun, they 
started to get away. The little boy was shot through the 
head, and the horse killed. The weemun then just took up 
the sick man and run with him down into the swamp." 

" We had a nephew living on the battle-field," said Mrs. . 

" The family was down with the measles at the time. But 
when they see thar was to be a fight, they just moved a plank 
in the ceiling over head, and hid up all their bacon, and lard, 
and corn-meal, and everything to eat they could n't take with 
'em. Then they tuke up a child apiece and come on for us ; 
we 'd done gone when they got hyere, and they come tearing 
throuo-h the swampy ground after us, toting their babes. They 
staid with us in the cabin till after the battle. But by that 
time his house was occupied by soldiers. He 'd been right 
ino-enious hiding his provisions, so nobody could find 'em ; 
but the soldiers went to tearing ofT ceilings to get planks to 
make boxes, and down come the corn-meal and bacon ; so they 
had a pretty rich supply." 

" After that," said Mr. , " his house got burnt. Nearly 

all the houses and fences for miles, on the battle-field, was 



MAGGIE'S HUSBAXD. B19 

burnt ; so that it was just one common. Tliar was nobody 
left. You never see such desotation. Then the armies moved 
off, leaving a rich pasture. I had my cattle pastured thar all 
that summer." 

j\Irs. proposed tliat the children should sing for me a 

little piece called " The Drummer Boy of Shiloh." Her 
husband favored the suggestion, saying it was " a right nice 
composed little song." 

" I 've plumb forgotten it," said Zeek. And the little girls, 
Avho blushingly undertook it after much solicitation, could re- 
member only a few lines here and there, greatly to the parents' 
chagrin. 

]\Irs. was at times very thoughtful ; and slie told me a 

newly married elder daughter had that day left home with her 
husband. 

" We '11 go by their house in the morning, and I '11 show it 
to you," said Zeek. 

I congratulated the parents on having their child settled so 
near them : yet Mrs. could scarcely speak of the separa- 
tion without rising tears. All were eloquent in their praises 
of the young husband. He was doing right well, when the 
war, the cruel, wasteful war, swept him in, and he fought for 
the slave despotism four years, without a dollar of pay. That 
left him plumb flat. But he was a right smart worker. He 
was a splendid hand to make rails. He could write also. 
After the surrender, he just let in to work, and made a crop ; 
and after the crop was laid by, (i. e., when the corn was hoed 
for the last time,) he pitched into writing. He employed 
himself as a teacher of that art. He had already tauglit nine 
schools, of ten successive lessons each, at two dollars a scholar. 
He had had as many as sixty pupils of an evening. I sym- 
pathized sincerely with the satisfaction they all felt in having 
their Maggie married to so smart a man. Indeed, I was begin- 
ning greatly to like this little family, and to feel a personal 
interest in all their affairs. It delio;hts me now to recall that 
December evening, spent in the red firelight of that humble 
farm-house ; and if I record their peculiarities of speech and 



8:^0 A NIGHT IX A TENNESSEE FARM-HOUSE. 

manners, it is because tliey were characteristic and pleas- 
ing. 

At eight o'clock, Zcek, weary with his long ride tliat day, 
said, " I believe I '11 lie down," and, without further ceremony, 
took off his clothes and got into one of the beds in the room. 

Mrs. thought I also niust be tired, and said I could go to 

bed when I pleased. Thinking it possible I might be assigned 
to the same apartment, I concluded to sit up until the audience 
became somewhat smaller. The girls presently went up-stairs, 
lighted to tlieir beds by the fire, which shone up the stairway 
and through the cracks in the chamber floor. I took courage 
then to say that I was ready to retire ; and, to my gratifica- 
tion, saw a candle lighted to show me to my chamber, — 
thouo-h I marvelled where that could be, for 1 supposed I had 
seen every room in the house, except the loft to which the 
frirls had jrone, when I had seen the sitting-room and kitchen. 

Mr. took me first out-doors, to a stoop on the side of 

the house opposite the great opening. Thence a door opened 
into a little framed box of a room built up against the log- 
house, as an addition. There was scarcely space to tui'n in it. 
The walls consisted of the naked, rough boards. There was 
not even a latch to the door, which opened into the universal 

night, and which the wind kept pushing in. Mv. advised 

me to place the chair against it, Avhich I did. I set the candle 
in the chair, and blew it out after I had got into bed. Then 
lookino- up, I saw with calm joy a star tln-ough the roof. It 
was interesting to know that tliis was the bridal chamber. 

The bed was deep and comfortable, and I did not suffer from 
cold, although I could feel the fingers of the wind toying with 
ray hair. The night was full of noises, like the reports of 
pistols. It was the old house cracking its joints. 



DEPARTURE. 321 



CHAPTER XLV. 

THE FIELD OF SHILOH. 

Daylight next morning shone in througli the chinks of the 
bridal chamber (for window it had none), and I awoke re- 
freshed, after sound sleep. The dawn was enlivened by pleas- 
ing old-time sounds, — the farmer chopping wood at the door, 
crowing cocks, gossiping geese, and the new-made fire snap- 
ping and crackling in the next room. 

The morning was very cold. The earth was covered with 
white frost, like snow. We had breakfast at the usual hour. 
" Farmers commonly get their breakfoses by sun-up," said 
mine host. At table (both doors open, and everybody shiver- 
ing) Mrs. remarked that if it was any colder in my 

country she would not like to hve there. I said to her, — 

" We should call this cold weather, though we have some 
much colder. But, allow me to tell you, I have suffered more 
from the cold since I have been in Tennessee, than I have for 
ten years in the North. There, when we go out of doors in 
winter, we go clad to meet the inclemencies of the season ; 
and we know how to make ourselves comfortable in our 
houses. Here your houses are open. The wind comes in 
through the cracks, and you do not even think of shutting the 
doors. My people at home would think they would perish, if 
they had to breakfast wath the wind blowing on them, as you 
have it blowing on you here." In short, I said so much that 
I got one of the doors closed, which I considered a great 
triumph. 

Zeek brought our animals to the gate ; and I called for my 

bill. INIr. said it appeared like he ought not to charge 

me anything ; he had been very glad of my company. As I 
21 



322 THE FIELD OF SHILOH. 

insisted on discharging my indebtedness, he named a sum so 
modest that I smiled. " You have n't heard of the rage for 
high prices, nor learned the art of fleecing the Yankees." I 
gave him twice the sum, but it Avas with difficulty I could 
prevail upon him to accept it, for he said it would trouble his 
conscience. A simple, thoroughly good and ui)nght man, — 
would there were more like him ! 

I mounted my horse at the gate, and in company with Zeek 
and his mule, set out for the battle-fiehl. We struck Owl 
Creek, but instead of crossing immediately, followed a cattle- 
path along its bank. On our right were woods, their tn])s just 
flushing with the new-risen sun ; on our left, corn-iields, in 
some of which the corn had not yet been gathered, while in 
others I noticed winter wheat, (ploughed in between the rows 
of stalks, still standing,) covering the ground with its green 
mat, now hoary with frost. Fording the creek at a safe place, 
and pushing in an easterly direction through the woods, we 
came to an army road, made by Wallace's division moving on 
towards Corinth, after the battle. 

It was a pleasant, still morning, such as always brings to the 
susceptible spirit a sense of exhilaration. Leisurely we rode 
among the wooded hills, which I could scarcely believe Avere 
ever shaken by the roar of battle. Only the blue jay and the 
woodpecker made the brown vistas of the trees echo with 
their drumming and screaming, where had been heard the 
shriek and whiz of missiles and bullets tapping the trunks. 

A little back from the cleared fields we came to a nice-look- 
ino- new lofr-hut. It had no window, and but one door. This 
was closed ; by which token Zeek knew the folks were away. 
This was the abode of his sister and her interesting husband ; 
this the bridal home. Something tender and grateful swelled 
up in my heart as I looked at the little windowless log-cabin, 
and thought of the divine gift of love, and of happiness, which 
dwells in humble places as well as in the highest. 

Quitting Wallace's road at its junction with a neighborhood 
road, we struck another cow-path, which led in a northeasterly 
direction through the woods. We soon came upon evidences 



SHILOH CHURCH. 323 

of a vast encampment. Here our right wing had intrenched 
itself after the battle. In this place I may remark that the 
astonishing fact about this field is, that our army did not in- 
trench itself before the battle. Three weeks it lay at Shiloh, 
menaced by the enemy ; Grant himself pronounced an attack 
probable, and the sagacious Sherman expected it ; yet when it 
came, it proved a perfect surprise ; it found our lines badly 
arranged, weak, and undefended by a single breastwork. 

Beyond was a magnificent field, swept of its fences, but 
stuck all over with abandoned tent-supports, showing where 
our finally victorious legions had lain. " This field was just 
like a citv after the fidit," said Zcek. I noticed that the 
trees in the surrounding groves were killed. " The Yankees 
skinned 'em for bark to lay on," Zeek explained. 

Crossing Shiloh Branch, — a sluggish little stream, with 
low, flat shores, covered with yellow sedge and sentinelled by 
solemn dead trees, — we ascended a woody hill, along the crest 
of which a row of graves showed where Hildebrand's picket 
line was attacked, on that disastrous Sunday morning. Each 
soldier had been buried where he fell. The boughs, so fresh 
and green that April morning, waving over their heads in the 
sweet light of dawn, though dismantled now by the blasts of 
winter, had still a tranquil beauty of their own, gilded and 
sparkling with sunshine and frost. Fires in the woods had 
burned the bottoms of the head-boards. I stopped at one grave 
within a rude los-rail enclosure. " In memory of L. G. Miller," 
said the tablet ; but the remainder of the inscription had been 
obliterated by fire. I counted eighteen graves in this little row. 

We rode on to Shiloh Church, — formerly a mere log-cabin 
in the woods, and by no means the neat white-steepled structure 
on some village green, which the name of country church sug- 
gests to the imagination. There Beauregard had his head- 
quarters after Sunday's battle. It was afterwards torn down 
for its timbers, and now nothing remained of it but half-burnt 
logs and rubbish. 

Below the hill, a few rods south of the church, Zeek 
showed me some Rebel graves. There many a poor fellow's 



824 THE FIELD OF SHILOH. 

bones lay scattered about, rooted up by swine. I saw an old 
half-rotted shoe, containing a skeleton foot. But the most 
hideous sight of all, was a grinning skull pushed out of a hole 
in the ground, exposing the neck-bone, with a silk cravat still 
tied about it in a foshionable knot. 

A short distance southeast of the church w^e visited the 
ruins of the Widow Ray house, burned to the ground in the 
midst of its blasted orchard and desolated fields. "A girl 
that lived hyere fell mightily in love with a Yankee soldier. 
Saturday night, he allowed there was going to be a battle, and 
come to bid her good-bye. He got killed; and she went 
plumb distracted. She 's married now to a mighty clever 
feller." 

Zeek had another romantic story to tell, as we returned to 
the church. " Hyere 's whur the bale of hay was. When 
the Rebs was brushing out the Yankees, an old Reb found a 
Yankee soldier nigh about this spot, that had been wounded, 
and was perishing for a drink of water. He just took him, 
and got him behind a bale of hay that was hyere, and give 
him drink out of his canteen, just like he 'd been his own 
brother. Some of the time he 'd be nussing him behind the 
hay, and the rest he 'd be shooting the Yankees over it. Some 
one asked him why he took such a heap of pains to save one 
Yankee life, while he was killing as many mo'e as he could. 
" They 're fighting enemies," he said ; " but a wounded man 
is no longer an enemy, he 's a feller being." 

Members of one family after all, though at war. Some 
were so in a literal sense. I recall the story of two Kentucky 
reo-iments that fought on this field, one for the bad cause and 
one for the good. Two brothers met, and the Federal cap- 
tured the Rebel. The former recommenced firing, when the 
latter said, " Don't shoot there ; that 's daddy behind that 
tree." 

Canterino- over the hills towards the northeast, we came to 
the scene of a severe infantry fight in the woods. There was 
a wild burial-place, containing some fifty patriot graves, origi- 
jially surrounded by a fence of stakes wattled with saplings. 



PITTSBURG LANDING. 825 

Botli the fence and the head-boards had been broken down and 
partly burned. All around us were sheep feeding in the open 
woods ; and withdrawn to the seclusion of the little burial- 
ground was a solitary ewe and a pair of new-born lambs. 

" All these hills ai'e just lined with graves," said Zeek. 
Not far away was a fence surrounding the resting-places of 
" two officers and seventeen private Rebels," as an inscription 
cut in the side of a black-jack informed us. There was a story 
connected with these graves. A Federal soldier found on the 
dead body of one of the officers, a watch, his likeness, his 
wife's likeness, a letter from his wife, and a letter written by 
himself requesting that, in case he siiould fall, these relics 
might be sent to her. The soldier faithfully fulfilled this duty; 
and at the close of the war the wife, following the directions 
he forwarded to her with them, came and found his grave. 

We rode a mile due north tiirough what Zeek termed " the 
long avenue," a broad, level opening through the woods, at 
the farther end of which, " on the elevatedest part," a Yankee 
battery had been posted, doing terrible execution, if one might 
judge by the trunks and boughs of trees lopped off by shot 
and shell. The Rebels charged this battery repeatedly, and 
it was captured and recaptured. 

Leaving the sedgy hills, and pursuing our course towards 
the Landing, we were stopped by a trench in the woods. It 
was one hundred and fifty feet long, and four deep. For some 
reason both ends had been left open. Two feet from the bot- 
tom, planks were laid across, the trench being filled with earth 
over them. Beneath the planks the dead were buried. Their 
bones could be seen at one of the open ends of the trench. 
A row of head-boards indicated the graves of Illinois volun- 
teers. 

We rode on to the spot which has given the battle its north- 
ern name. Under high bluffs, on what Zeek called a " bench," 
— a shelf of land on the I'iver bank, — approached from the 
land side by a road running down through a narrow ravine, 
stood the two log-luits, a dwelling and a grocery, which consti- 
tuted the town of " Pittsburo-h." Thex'e was not so much as 



326 THE FIELD OF SHILOH. 

a wharf there, but steamers made their landing against the 
natural bank. There was absolutely nothing there now, the 
two huts havino; been burned. Wild ducks sat afloat on the 
broad smooth breast of the river. It was not easy looking 
down from those heights upon the tranquil picture, to call up 
that other scene of Rattle-panic and dismay, — the routed Fed- 
eral troops pouring through the woods, disorganized, beaten, 
seeking the shelter of the bluffs and the protection of the gun- 
boats ; the great conflict roaring behind them ; the victorious 
Rebels in wild pursuit ; God's solemn Sabbath changed to a 
horrible carnival of mad passions and bloodshed. 

" The Rebels just fiinned 'em out," said Zeek. " The 
Yankees put up white flags under the bluff, but the Rebels 
did n't come near enough to see 'em ; they tuke a skeer, — the 
Federals fell back so easy, they was afraid of some trick. 
Thar was such a vast amount of 'em they could n't all get to 
the Landing. Some got drowned trying to swim Snake Creek. 
Numbers and numbers tried to swim the river. A Federal 
oflicer told me he saw his men swim out a little ways, get cold, 
then wind up together, and go to hugging each other, and 
sink." Such are the traditions of the flght which have ]iassed 
into the memory of the country people ; but they should be 
taken with considerable allowance. 

On the level river bottom opposite the Landing we found an 
extensive corn-field, bounded by heavy timber beyond. Un- 
der that shore the gunboats lay where they shelled the ad- 
vancino- Rebels. It was there, emerging from the timber into 
the open field, that our defeated army saw, that Sunday even- 
mff, first the advanced cavalry, then a whole division of Buell's 
army coming to the rescue, — banners flying and bayonets 
glittering among the trees. Glad sight ! No wonder the run- 
aways under the bluffs made the welkin ring with their cheers ! 
If Buell did not arrive in time to save that day, he was in time 
to save the next, and turn defeat into victory. 

Takino- the Hamburg Road up the river, we reached the 
scene of General Prentiss's disaster. The Rebels were in our 
camps that Sunday morning almost before the alarm of attack 



THE SURPRISE. 827 

was o-lven. First camo the wild cries of the pickets rushing 
in, accompanied by the scattering shots of the enemy, and fol- 
lowed instantly by shells hurtling through the tents, in which 
the iinnates were just rousing from sleep ; then, sweeping like 
an avalanche through the Avoods, the terrible resistless battle- 
front of the enemy. 

" Into the just-aroused camps thronged the Rebel regiments, 
firing sharj) volleys as they came, and springing towards our 
laggards with the bayonet. Some were shot down as they 
were running, without weapons, hatless, coatless, toward the 
river. Others fell as they were disentangling themselves from 
the flaps that formed the doors to their tents ; others as they 
were buckling on their accoutrements ; a few, it was even said, 
as they were vainly trying to impress on the cruelly-exultant 
enemy their readiness to suiTender. Officers were wounded 
in their beds, and left for dead, Avho, through the whole two 
days' struggle, lay there gasping in their agony, and on Mon- 
day evening were found in their gore, inside their tents, and 
still able to tell the tale." ^ 

The houses all along the road were burned. In Prentiss's 
front was a farm, all laid waste, the orchard shot to pieces and 
destroyed by balls. The woods all around were killed, per- 
forated with countless holes, as by the bills of woodpeckers. 

Striking the Hamburg and Purdy road, we went west to 
the spot where the Rebel General Sydney A. Johnston fell, 
pierced by a mortal wound. Zeek then piloted me through 
the woods to the Corinth Road, where, time pressing, I took 
leave of him, sony I could not accept his invitation to go 
home with him to dinner. It was five miles to his father's 
house ; it was twenty miles to Corinth ; and the day was al- 
ready half spent. 

1 "Agate," in the Cincinnati Gazette, who furnislied the best contemporaneous 
account of this battle. 



328 WAITING FOR THE TRAIN" AT mDNIGHT. 



CHAPTER XLVL 

WAITIXG FOR THE TRAIX AT MIDNIGHT. 

Stopping occasionally to talk with the people along the 
road, and dining at a farm-house, I did not reach Corinth until 
sunset. The first thing I noticed, in passing the fortifications, 
was that the huts of the negro garrison were dismantled ; and 
I found the citizens rejoicing over the removal of the troops. 

I returned to Mr. M 's house, and was welcomed by Mrs. 

M , who seemed almost to have forgotten that I was not 

only a Yankee, but a " bad Yankee " from INIassachusetts. 
And here I may remark that, whatever hostility was shown 
me by the Southern people on account of my Northern origin, 

it usually wore off on a short acquaintance. Mrs. M had 

a private room for me this time ; and she caused a great, glow- 
ing fire to be made in it for my comfort. After suj^per she 
invited me into her sitting-room, where we talked freely about 
the bad Yankees, the war, and emancipation. 

Both her husband and fxther claimed to be Union men : but 
their Unionism was of a kind too common in the South. They 
hated tlie secession leaders almost as bitterly as they hated the 
Yankee government. 

Mrs. M : " Slavery was bad economy, I know ; but oh, 

it was glorious!" — spoken with a kind of romantic enthusi- 
asm. " I 'd give a mint of money right now for servants like 
I once had, — to have one all my own ! " — clasping her hands 
in the ardor of that passionate wish. 

" Ladies at the North," she went on, " if they lose their ser- 
vants, can do their own work ; but we can't, we can't ! " 

She bemoaned the loss of a girl she formerly owned ; a 
bright mulattress, very pretty and intelligent. " She could 
read and write as well as I could. There was no kind of work 



A PRACTICE OF SOUTHERX LADIES. 329 

that girl could n't do. And so faithful ! — I trusted every- 
thing to her, and was never deceived." 

I asked if she could feel in her heart that it w^as right to 
own sucli a creature. 

" I believed in it as much as I believed in tlie Bible. We 
were taught it from our infancy, — we were taught it with our 
relioion. I still think it was right : but I think it was because 
we abused slavery tliat it was taken from vis. Emancipation 
is a worse thing for our servants than for us. They can't take 
care of themselves." 

" What has become of that favorite girl of yours ? " 

" Slie is in St. Louis. She works at her trade there ; she 's 
a splendid dressmaker. Oh, if I only had her to make my 
dresses now, like she used to ! She owns the house and lot 
where she lives ; she has bought it with the money she has 
earned. She 's married to a very fine mulatto man." 

" It seems she can take care of herself a good deal better 
than you can," I remarked. " It is she who is independent ; 
it is you whom slavery has left helpless." 

" Well, some of them have made money, and know how to 
keep it. But they are very few." 

" Yet do not those few indicate what the race may become ? 
And, when we consider the bondage from which they have 
just broken, and the childisli improvidence which was natural 
to them in that condition, is it not a matter of surprise that so 
many know how to take care of themselves? " She candidly 
confessed that it was. 

As an illustration of a practice Southern ladies too com- 
monly indulge in, I may state that, while we were conversing, 
she sat in the chimney-corner, chewing a dainty little quid, 
and spitting into the fire something that looked marvellously 
like tobacco juice. 

As I was to take the train for jNIemphis at two o'clock in the 
morning, I engaged a hackman to come to the house for me at 
one. Relying upon his fidehty, I went to bed, slept soundly, 
and awoke providentially at a quarter past the hour agreed 
upon. I waited half an hour for him, and he did not appear. 



330 WAITING FOR THE TRAIN AT MIDNIGHT. 

Opening the door to listen for coming wheels, I heard the train 
whistle. Catching up my luggage, which luckily was not 
heavy, I rushed out to search, at dead of night, in a strange 
town, lampless, soundless, and fast asleep, for a railroad depot, 
which I should scarce have thought of finding even by day- 
light without inquiring my way. Not a living creature Avas 
abroad ; not a light was visible in any house ; I could not see 
the ground I was treading upon. Fortunately I knew the 
general direction in which the railroad lay ; I struck it at last ; 
then I saw a light, which guided me to the depot. 

But where was the train? It was ah'eady over-due. I 
could hear it whistling occasionally down the track, where 
some accident had happened to it. The depot consisted of a 
little framed box just large enough for a ticket-office. You 
stood outside and bought your ticket through a hole. This 
box contained a stove, a railroad lantern, and two men. The 
door, contrary to the custom of the country, was kept scru- 
pulously shut. In vain were all appeals to the two men 
within to open it. They Avere talking and laughing by their 
comfortable fire, Avhile the Avaiting passengers outside Avere 
freezing. Two hours Ave Avaited, that cold Avinter's night, for 
the train Avhich did not come. There was an expi'ess-ofiice 
lighted up near by, but there Avas no admittance for strangers 
there either. 

Seeing a red flame a short distance up the railroad track, 
and human forms passing at times before it, I Avent stumbling 
out through the darkness towards it. I found it an encamp- 
ment of negroes. Twelve men, Avomen, and children Avere 
grouped in gypsy fishion about a smoky fire. They Avere in 
a miserable condition, Avretchedly clad, hungry, Aveary, and 
sleepy, but unable to sleep. One Avoman held in her arms a 
sick babe, that kept up its perpetual sad Avail through the night. 
The wind seemed to be in every direction, bloAving the smoke 
hito everybody's eyes. Yet these suffering and oppressed creat- 
ures did for me Avhat men of my OAvn color had refused to do, 
— they made room for me at their fire, and hospitably invited 
me to share such poor comforts as they had. The incident 



A NEGRO ENCAMPMENT. 331 

was liumilinting and touching. One man gave mo an apple, 
for which I was but too glad to return him many times its cost. 

They told me their story. They had been working all sum- 
mer for a planter in Tishemingo County, who had refused to 
pay them, and they were now hunting for new homes. Two 
or three had a little money ; the rest had none. It made my 
heart sick to look at them, and feel that it was out of my power 
to do them any real, permanent service. But they Avere not 
discouraged. Said the spokesman of the party, cheerfully, — 
an old gray-haired man in tatters, — "I '11 drap my feet into 
de road in de mornin' ; I '11 go till I find somefin' ! " 

Hearing the train again, whistling in earnest this time, I 
took leave of them, and reached the depot just as it arrived. 



332 FKOM CORINTH TO IVIEMPHIS. 



CHAPTER XLVII. 

FROM CORINTH TO MEMPHIS. 

At daylight we were running through the level lower coun- 
ties of West Tennessee. This is by far the most fertile divis- 
ion of the State. Its soil is a rich black mould, adapted to the 
culture of cotton, tobacco, and grains, which are produced in 
great abundance. 

Occasionally in the dim dawn, and later in the forenoon, we 
passed out-door fires about Avhich homeless negroes had passed 
the night, and around which they still sat or stood, in wretched 
plight, but picturesque and cheerful, — old men and women, 
young children, and tall girls in tattered frocks, warming their 
hands, and watching with vacant curiosity the train as it shot 

by. 

" That 's freedom ! that 's what the Yankees have done for 
'em ! " was the frequent exclamation that fell from the lips of 
Southern ladies and o-entlemcn looking out on these miserable 
groups from the car windows. 

" They '11 all be dead before spi'ing." 

" Niacvers can't take care of themselves." 

" The Southern people were always their best friends. How 
I pity them ! don't you ? " 

" Oh, yes, of course I pity them ! How much better off they 
were when they were slaves ! " 

With scarcely one exception there was to be detected in 
these expressions a grim exultation. The slave-owners, bav- 
in o- foretold that freedom would prove flital to the bondman, 
experienced a satisfaction in seeing their predictions come true. 
The usual words of sympathy his condition suggested had all 
the hardness and hollowness of cant. Those who really felt 



COMMERCE OF MEMPHIS. 333 

commiseration for his sufferings spoke of them in very differ- 
ent tones of voice. 

But there was anotlier side to the picture. At every stop- 
ping-place, throngs of well-dressed blacks crowded upon the 
train. They were going to Memphis to " buy Christmas," — 
as the purchase of gifts for that gay season is termed. Hap- 
pier faces I have never seen. There was not a drunken or 
disorderly person among them, — which would have been a 
remarkable circumstance had the occasion been St. Patrick's 
day, or the Fourth of July, and had these been Irish or white 
American laborers. They were all comfortably clad, — many 
of them elegantly, — in clothes they had purchased with money 
earned out of bondage. They paid with pride the full fares 
exacted of free people, instead of the half fares formerly de- 
manded for slaves. They had still left in their purses ample 
means to " buy Christmas " for their friends and relatives left 
at home. They occupied cars by themselves which they filled 
with the noise of cheerful conversation and laughter. And 
nobody said of thern^ " That is freedom ! That is what the 
Yankees have done for them ! " 

Past cotton-fields and handsome mansions in the pleasant 
suburbs, we ran into Memphis, — a city which surprised me 
by its beautiful situation and commercial activity. 

Memphis stands on a high bluff overlooking the Mississippi 
River. It is the emporium of West Tennessee, Eastern Ar- 
kansas, and Northern Mississippi, and is the most important 
town between New Orleans and St. Louis. Its crowth has 
been rapid. Laid out in 1820, its population in 1840 was 
8,839 ; in 1850, 16,000 ; in 1860, 50,000. Its present pojm- 
lation is not known ; but it has immensely increased since the 
last census, and is still increasing. I was told that, at the time 
of my visit, the building of nineteen hundred new houses had 
been contracted for, and that only labor was wanted to com- 
plete them. 

In the year ending September 1st, 1860, 400,000 bales of 
cotton were shipped from this port. During seven months of 
the year 1804, — May to November inclusive, — the shipments 



334 FEOM CORINTH TO MEMPHIS. 

amounted to only 34,316 bales. In 18G5, from May, the month 
Avhen the cotton released by the fall of the Confederacy began to 
pour in, to December 22d, the date of my visit, the shipments 
were 138,615 bales. These last figures, furnished me by the 
government assessors, do not include the government cotton, 
which passed untaxed, and a considerable quantity which 
came to Memphis after being taxed in interior districts.^ 

The view of the commerce of Memphis from the esplanade 
overlooking the landing is one of the most animated imagina- 
ble. You stand on the brow of the bluff, with the city behind 
you, and the river below, — its broad, sweeping current sever- 
ing the States. From the foot of the bluff projects an exten- 
sive shelving bank, with an understratum of sandstone ; form- 
ing a natural landing, commonly called a " levee," although 
no levee is here, — the celebrated levee at New Orleans having 
impressed its name upon all landings of any importance up the 
river. You look down upon a superb array of steamers, lying 
along the shore ; their elegantly ornamented pilot-houses and 
lofty tiers of decks supported by slender pillars fully entitling 
them to be named floating palaces. From the tower-like pipes 
issue black clouds of smoke, with here and there rising white 
puffs of steam. The levee is crowded with casks and cotton 
bales, covering acres of ground. Up and down the steep Avay 
cut through the brow of the bluff, affording access to the land- 
in(T from the town, a stream of drays is passing and repassing. 
Freio-hts are going aboard, or coming ashore. Drays are load- 
ing and unloading. Bales of cotton and hay, casks, boxes, 
sacks of grain, lumber, household furniture, supplies for plan- 
tations, mules, ploughs, wagons, are tumbled, rolled, carried, 
tossed, driven, pushed, and dragged, by an army of laborers, 
from the levee along the broad wooden stages to the steamers' 
decks. The movement, the seeming confusion, the rattling of 
drays, the ringing of boats' bells, the horrible snort of the 
steam-whistle, the singing calls of the deck hands heaving at a 

i Since March loth, 18G4, the government tax on cotton had been two cents a 
pound. The average weight of a bale, which was latterly 460 or 405 pounds, is now 
500 pounds. The tax on a bale was accordingly about ten dollars. There were in 
Memphis at that time 30,000 bales. 



SCENE ON THE LEVEE. 335 

rope or lifting some heavy weight, the multitudinous shouts^ 
and wild, fantastic gesticulations of jxanss of neoroes drivinfi 
on board a drove of frightened mules, the voices of the team- 
sters, the arriving and departing packets, drift-wood going down 
stream, and skiffs paddling up, — the whole forms an aston- 
ishing and amusing scene. Then over the immense brown 
sand-bar of the Arkansas shore, and behind its interminable 
line of dark forest boundaries, the sun goes down in a tranquil 
sea of fire, reflected in the river, — a wonderfully contrasting 
picture. Here all is life and animation ; there all is softness 
and peace. 

Evening comes, and adds picturesque eff'ect to the scene. 
The levee is lighted by great smoking and flaring flambeaux. 
A grate swinging in a socket on the end of a pole is filled 
with bituminous coal and wood, the blaze of which is enlivened 
by flakes of oil-soaked cotton, resembling fat, laid on from a 
bucket. The far-illuminating flame shoots up in the night, 
while the ignited oil from the grate falls in little streams of 
dripping blue fire into the river. Until late at niglit, and often 
all night, amid darkness and fog and rain, the loading of freight 
goes on by this lurid illumination. The laborers are chiefly 
negroes, whose ebon, dusky, sallow and tawny faces, lithe 
attitudes, and sublime carelessness of attire, heighten the pic- 
torial effect of the scene. Bale after bale is tumbled froni the 
drays, and rolled down the levee, — a negro at each end of it 
holdincr and guidino; it with cotton-hooks. At the foot of the 
landing it is seized by two other negroes, who roll it along 
the plank to its place on the deck of the upward-bound boat. 
Here are fifty men rolling barrels aboard, each at the other's 
heels ; and yonder is a lono- strao-o-linfr file of blacks crossing 
the stage from the levee to the steamer, each carrying a box 
on his shoulder. 



836 FKEEDMEN'S SCHOOLS. 



CHxVPTER XLVIII. 

FREEDMEN'S SCHOOLS AND THE FKEEDMEN'S BUREAU. 

By a census taken in June, 1865, there Avere shown to be 
16,509 freedmen in Memphis. Of this number 220 were 
indi<Tent persons, maintained, not by the city or the Bureau, 
but by the freed people themselves. During the past three 
years, colored benevolent societies in Memphis had contrib- 
uted five thousand dollars towards the support of their own 
poor. 

There were three thousand pupils in the freedmen's schools. 
The teachers for these were furnished, here as elsewhere, 
chiefly by benevolent societies in the North. Such of the 
citizens as did not oppose the education of the blacks, were 
generally silent about it. Nobody said of it, " That is free- 
dom ! That is what the Yankees are doing for them ! " 

Visiting these schools in nearly all the Southern States, I 
did not hear of the white people taking any interest in them. 
With the exception of here and there a man or woman in- 
spired by Northern principles, I never saw or heard of a 
Southern citizen, male or female, entering one of those hum- 
ble school-rooms. How often, thinking of this indifference, 
and watching the earnest. Christian labors of that little band 
of refined and sensitive men and Avomen and girls, who had 
left cheerful homes in the North and voluntarily exposed 
themselves to privation and opprobrium, devoting their noblest 
eneroies to the work of educating and elevating the despised 
race, — how often the stereotyped phrase occurred to me, 
" The Southern people were always their best friends ! " 

The wonder with me was, how these " best friends " could 
be so utterly careless of the intellectual and moral interests of 
the freedmen. For my own part, I could never enter one of 



CONTRASTS IN AGES AND FEATURES. 337 

those schools without emotion. They were often lield in old 
buildings and sheds good for little else. There was not a 
school-room in Tennessee furnished with appropriate seats and 
desks. I found a similar condition of things in all the States. 
The pews of colored churches, or plain benches in the vestries, 
or old chairs with boards laid across them in some loft over a 
shop, or out-of-doors on the grass in summer, — such was the 
usual scene of the freedmen's schools. 

In the branches taught, and in the average progress made, 
these do not differ much from ordinary white schools at the 
North. In those studies which appeal to the imagination and 
memory, the colored pupil excels. In those which exercise 
the reflective and reasoning faculties, he is less proficient. 

But it is in the contrasts of age and of personal appearance 
which they present, that the colored schools diifer from all 
others. I never visited one of any size in which there were 
not two or three or half a dozen children so nearly white that 
no one would have suspected the negro taint. From these, the 
complexion ranges through all the indescribable mixed hues, to 
the shining iron black of a few pure-blooded Africans, perhaps 
not more in number than the seemingly pure-blooded whites. 
The younger the generation, the lighter the average skin ; by 
wdiich curious fact one perceives how fast the race was bleach- 
ing under the " peculiar " system of slavery.^ 

The contrast of features is no less than that of complexions. 
Here you see the rosy child, whose countenance shows a per- 
fect Caucasian contour, shaded perhaps by light brown curls, 
reciting in the same class with thick-lipped girls and woolly- 
headed boys. 

The difference in ages is even more striking. Six years 
and sixty may be seen, side by side, learning to read from the 
same chart or book. Perhaps a bright little negi'o boy or girl 

1 At Vicksburg, Miss., in one school of 89 children, only three were of unmixed 
African blood. In another, there were two black and 68 mixed. In a school for 
adults, there were 41 black to 50 mixed. In a school of children on a Mississippi 
plantation, there were 46 black and 23 mixed. In another plantation school, there 
were 30 black and 7 mixed. These figures illustrate not only the rapid bleaching of 
the race, but also the difference in color between town and country. 
22 



838 FREEDMEN'S SCHOOLS AND FREEDMEN'S BUREAU. 

is teaching a white-haired old man, or bent old woman m 
spectacles, their letters. There are few more affecting sights 
than these aged people beginning the child's task so late in 
life, often after their eyesight has fixiled. Said a very old man 
to a teacher who asked him his age, " I 'm jammed on to a 
hundred, and dis is my fust chance to git a start." 

The scholars are generally well behaved. It is the restless- 
ness and love of fun of the younger ones which prove tlie 
greatest trial to the teacher's patience. The proportion of 
vicious mischief-makers is no greater than in white schools. 
In the evening-schools, attended cliiefly by aduhs, all is inter- 
est and attention. The older pupils are singularly zealous 
and assiduous in their studies. The singing is usually excel- 
lent. Never shall I forget the joyous blending of sweet, rich, 
exultant childish voices, to which I often listened. The voices 
of singing children are always delightful and touching : how 
especially so the musical choruses of children, once slaves, 
sinc:in<]r the iilad sono;s of freedom ! 

At Memphis, as at Nashville and other points in Tennessee, 
I saw much of the operations of the Freedmen's Bureau. 

General Fiske appeared to me peculiarly fitted for his posi- 
tion; and he was generally supported by firm and efficient 
officers ; although, like all the Assistant - Commissioners I 
saw, he complained that the law establishing the Bureau did 
not permit him to choose his own agents. He had to take 
such army officers as were given him ; some of whom were 
always found to be incompetent, or neglectful of their duties, 
or so prejudiced for or against the blacks that they were ren- 
dered incapable of administering justice. A few \\'ere in sym- 
pathy with slavery. Others, meaning to do right, were seduced 
from a straightforward course by the dinners to which they 
were invited by planters who had favors to ask. With such, 
the rio-hts of the freedmen were sure to suffer, when into the 
opposite scale were thrown the aristocratic Rebel's flattermg 
attentions and the smiles of his fair daughters. 

It was the practice of the agents of the Bureau to make 
freqaent tours of their counties, and General Fiske himself was 



OLD WRONGS RIGHTED. 339 

in the habit of running off every few days to visit some impor- 
tant point, where his organizing and concihatory influence Avas 
necessary. Often he would find the planters and the freedmen 
separated by hedges of animosity and distrust. Usually his 
first step was to call together as large an audience as could be 
obtained of both classes, and explain to them the object of the 
Bureau, and the duty each class owed the other. In nearly 
every instance, earnestness and common sense prevailed ; the 
freedmen came forward and made contracts with the land- 
owners, and the land-owners conceded to the freedmen advan- 
tages they had refused before. 

Sometimes exciting and dramatic scenes occurred at these 
meetings. " Not long ago," said General Fiske, " I addressed 
a mixed audience of three thousand persons at Spring Hill. 
The meeting was presided over by a black man. Rebel gen- 
erals and Federal generals sat together on the platform. I 
made a short speech, and afterwards answered questions for 
anybody, white or black, that chose to ask them. I had said 
that the intention of the Bureau was to do justice to all, with- 
out respect to color ; when there rose up in the audience a 
tall, well dressed, fine-looking woman, sallow, very pale, and 
much agitated, and wished to know if she could have justice. 
Said she, ' I was owned by a respectable planter in this neigh- 
borhood who kept me as his wife for many years. I have 
borne him five children. Two of them are dead. A short 
time ago he married another woman, and drove me and my 
three children off.' The man was in the audience. Everybody 
present knew him, and there were a hundred witnesses that 
could vouch for the truth of the woman's story. I told her 
justice should certainly be done in her case. The respectable 
planter now supports her and her three children." 

I have known many wrongs of this nature to be righted by 
the Bureau ; the late slave-owners, learning that instead of 
making their offspring by bondwomen profitable to them as 
chattels, in the new order of things they were to be held re- 
sponsible for their maintenance. 

The frcedmen's courts were designed to adjudicate upon 



340 THE FEEEDMEN'S BUREAU. 

cases which could not be safely intrusted to the civil courts. ^ 
They are in reality military courts, and the law by which they 
are governed is martial law. I found them particularly efficient 
in Tennessee. The annoying technicalities and legal quibbles 
by which, in ordinary courts, the truth is so often inextricably 
embarrassed, were here swept aside, and justice reached with 
admirable directness. I have watched carefully scores of cases 
decided by these tribunals, and do not remember one in which 
substantial justice was not done. No doubt exceptions to this 
rule occur, but I am satisfied that they are no more frequent 
than those which occur in common-law courts ; and they are 
insio"nificant compared with the wholesale wrong to which the 
unprotected freedman would be subjected in communities where 
old slave codes and immemorial prejudice deny to him human 
rights. 

The freedmen's court is no respecter of persons. The 
proudest aristocrat and the humblest negro stand at its bar on 
an equal footing. I remember a case in which a member of 
the Tennessee Legislature was the defendant, and upwards of 
twenty freedmen hired by him were the plaintiffs. He had 
voted against the Negro Testimony Bill, which, if it had 
passed, Avould have placed his case in a civil court ; and now 
he had the satisfaction of seeing eight of these blacks stand up 
and testify against him. He admitted that they were faithful 
and truthful men ; and their testimony was so straightforward, 
I was astonished that he should have waited to have his 
accounts with them adjusted by the Bureau. 

Many difficulties arise from honest misunderstandings be- 

1 See Paragraph VII. in Circular No. 5, issued by INIajor-General Howard, Com- 
missioner of the Bureau, and approved by the President, June 2d, 18(55: — 

" In all places where there is an interruption of civil law, or in which local courts, 
by reason of old codes, in violation of the freedom guaranteed by the Proclamation 
of the President and the laws of Congress, disregard the negro's right to justice 
before the laws, in not allowing him to give testimony, the control of all subjects 
relating to refugees and freedmen being committed to this Bureau, the Assistant- 
Commissioners will adj udicate, either themselves or through officers of their appoint- 
ment, all difficulties arising between negroes themselves, or between negroes and 
whites or Indians, except those in military service, so far as recognizable by military 
authority, and not taken cognizance of by the other tribunals, civil or military, of the 
United States." 



A STOEY OF \VEONG. 341 

tween the contracting parties. These are decided by the 
Bureau according to general rules of equity, and nearly 
always to the satisfaction of both. I was assured by several 
of the most experienced officers of the Bureau in Tennessee, 
that, in cases where contracts were fully understood, they were 
much less frequently broken by the freedmen than by the 
whites. 

Complaints of assaults .upon freedmen, and even upon women 
and girls, were very common. Here is a simple story of wrono- 
related to me by a girl of fourteen whom I saw, weary and 
famished and drenched, after she had walked thirty-four miles 
to obtain the protection of the Bureau, bearing the marks of 
cruel beatings upon her back. 

" My name is Milly Wilson ; I live in Wilson County ; my 
mistress's brother was my father. I have been kept a slave 
since Emancipation. I worked in de cornfield ; I had to hoe 
and drap corn ; I ho'ped gether the corn and shuck it. I had 
to cvd^e ; and I had spinning to do. I ho'ped sow, hoe, and 
pick cotton. I had to pick bolls and bring 'em into house, 
and pick cotton out o' bolls till chickens crowed for midnio-ht. 
Dey never give me nothing. I did n't dare ax 'em for wao-es ; 
and dey said if I run away dey 'd shoot me. My mistress 
tried to whoop me, but she could n't ; I 'd run from her. 
Den her son Tom whooped me with a soap-paddle till he 
broke it. He struck me side of head with his fist, and knocked 
me down." (Her face was still discolored by the blow.) " His 
father said, ' That 's no way to beat 'em ; take 'em down and 
paddle 'em.' Dat night I lef '. I told Jennie to tell 'em I 'd 
gone to ]Mui*freesboro', so dey would n't git on de right track ; 
and I started for Nashville. It was n't long till day when I 
lef. I walked till sun-up ; and laid by de balance part of de 
day in an old barn. I had nothing to eat, but on'y jist de 
meat and bread I had for my supper I took and carried with 
me for de nex' day. De nex' night de moon riz. I could n't 
see de moon, but it give light enough so I could see how to 
■walk. Two miles from Triune I found some fi'iends, and dey 
give me breakfas'. Wednesday mornin' it was sleetin', and 



842 THE FREEDMEN'S BUREAU. 

dey give me a shawl. Thursday I got to Nashville. Now I 
want to send for my clothes ; for it was so dark when I lef ' I 
could n't see to find 'em. I lef my clothes, and a skillet and 
led, and a basket." The court sent not only for these, but for 
Master Tom who had paddled her, and for Master Tom's 
father who had abetted the outrage and held her enslaved 
after slavery was abolished. This is a very mild case com- 
pared with some that came to my knowledge, too horrible or 
too disgusting to be narrated. 

The freedmen's affairs in West Tennessee were giving the 
Bureau daily less and less trouble, — both whites and blacks 
beginning to learn that contracts Avere made to be kept, and 
that their mutual interests depended upon mutual good-will. 
The most aggravated and embarrassing cases were from Mis- 
sissippi. The farce of opening the civil courts to the blacks 
in that State had caused a discontinuance of the freedmen's 
courts, and the result Avas a stampede of wronged and outraged 
people across the line. During an hour I spent at tiie Bureau 
one morning, a stream of these cases kept coming in. The 
newly organized Mississippi militia, under pretence of search- 
ing for arms A\hich the blacks were supposed to have provided 
for the forthcomino; Christmas insurrections, had committed 
robberies, murders, and other outrages, against these unoffend- 
ing and unprotected people. The Bureau at Memphis could 
do nothing but refer these cases to the Assistant-Commissioner 
at Vicksbui'g, who could do nothing but refer them to the civil 
courts, which let them alone. One case I recall, however, in 
which the officers at Memphis thought they could do some- 
thing. A colored man, who had been managing a Mississippi 
plantation under contract for a quarter of the crop, came to 
Mem[)his for a redress of grievances. The owner had given 
him fifteen dollars, and refused to give him anything more 
for his labor. The cotton was baled, and ready for market. 
It would soon be in Memphis. " Keep watch of that cotton," 
said the agent ; " and as soon as it arrives, we Avill attach it, 
and you shall have your share." 

While I was there, two negroes came in from Parson Botts's 



BUSINESS OF THE BUREAU. 343 

plantation, in De Soto County, (Mississippi,) bringing guns 
which they had run off with on the approach of tlie niihtia. 
The wife of one of these men had been beaten over the head 
with a pistol, and afterwards hung by the neck, to compel her 
to disclose Avhere the guns were hidden. In this case there 
was no redress. 

A great variety of business is brought before the Bureau. 
Here is a negro-man who has printed a reward offering fifty 
dollars for information to assist him in finding his wife and 
children, sold away from him in times of slavery : a small sum 
for such an object, you may say, but it is all he has, and he 
has come to the Bureau for assistance. Here is a free mulat- 
tress, who was stolen by a guerilla during the war, and sold 
into slavery in Arkansas, and she has come to enter a claim 
for wages earned during two years of enforced servitude. 
Yonder is a white woman, who has been warned by the police 
that she must not live with her husband because he is black, 
and who has come to claim protection in her marriage relation, 
bringing proof that she is in reality a colored woman. That 
poor old cripi)led negro was maimed for life when a slave by a 
cruel master, who will now be compelled to pension him. 
Yonder comes ah old farmer with a stout colored boy, to get 
the Bureau's sanction to a contract they Avish to make. " Pull 
off your hat. Bob," says the old man ; " you was raised to 
that;" for he was formerly the lad's owner. He claims to 
have been a Union man. " I was opposed to secession till I 
was swep' plumb away." He is very grateful for what the 
officers do for him, and especially for the good advice they 
give the boy. " I '11 do well by him, and larn him to read, 
if he '11 do well by me." 

As they go out, in comes a powerful, short-limbed black, 
in tattered overcoat, with a red handkerchief on his head, and 
with a lordly countenance, looking like a barbarian chief. He 
has made a crop ; found everything — mules, feed, imple- 
ments ; hired his own help, — fifteen men and women ; man- 
aged everything ; by agreement he Avas to have one half ; but, 
owing to an attempt to swindle him, he has had the cotton 



344 THE FREEDMEN'S BUREAU. 

attached ; and now it is not on his own account he has come, 
but he is owing his men wages, and they Avant something for 
Christmas, which he thinks reasonable, and he desires the 
Bureau's assistance to raise three hundred dollars on the said 
cotton. " For I 'm bound," he says, " to be liberal with my 
men." 

Here is a boy, who was formerly a slave, to whom his 
father, a free man, willed a sum of money, which the boy's 
owner borrowed, giving his note for it, but never repaid, — 
for did not the boy and all that he had belong to his master ? 
The worn and soiled bit of paper is produced ; and now the 
owner will liave that money to restore, with interest. Lucky for 
the boy that he kept that torn and dirty scrap carefully hidden 
all these years ! Such documents are now serving to right 
many an ancient wrong. I saw at the Freedmen's Bureau at 
Richmond a large package of wills, made in favor of slaves, 
usually by their white fathers, all which had been suppressed 
by the legitimate heirs. One, a mere rotten and jaundiced 
rag, scarcely legible, had been carried sewed in the lining of 
a slave-woman's dress for more than forty years, — the date 
of the will being 1823. Her son was legally emancipated by 
that instrument ; but her owner, who claimed to be his owner 
by inheritance, threatened to kill her if the will was not de- 
stroyed, and he believed that it had been destroyed. That 
boy was now a middle-aged man, having passed the flower of 
his years in bondage ; and his mother was an old woman, 
living to thank God that her son was free at last. The master, 
a rich man, had as yet no idea of the existence of that will, by 
which he was to be held responsible for the payment of over 
forty years' wages to his unlawful bondman. 

From another of these documents, made by a white master, 
I copied the following suggestive paragraph : " It is also my 
last will and desire that my beloved wife Sally Dandridge, 
and 7711/ son Harrison, and mi/ daughters Charity and Julia, 
should be free : and it is my wish and desire for them to be 
emancipated hereafter, and for them to remain as free people." 
Another paragraph gave them property. Tiiis will, like nearly 



SUPPRESSION OF WILLS. 345 

all the rest, had heen registered and proved ; and, hke them, it 
had been suppressed, — the beloved wife and son and daughters 
remaining in bondage, until the slave system went down with 
the Rebellion, and a day of judgment came with the Freed- 
men's Bureau. 



A MISSISSIPPI STEAMBOAT. 347 



CHAPTER XLIX. 

DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI. 

At Memphis I took passage in a first-class Mississippi steam- 
packet for Vicksburg. It was evening when I went on board. 
The extensive saloon, with its long array of state-rooms on 
each side, its ornamental gilt ceiling, and series of dazzling 
chandeliers, was a brilliant spectacle. A corps of light-footed 
and swift-handed colored waiters were setting the tables, — 
bringing in baskets of table-cloths, and spreading them ; im- 
mense baskets of crockery, and distributing it ; and trays of 
silver, which added to the other noises its ringing and jingling 
accompaniment. About the stove and bar and captain's office, 
at the end of the saloon, was an astonishing crowd of passen- 
gers, mostly standing, talking, drinking, buying tickets, Inlay- 
ing cards, swearing, reading, laughing, chewing, spitting, and 
filling the saloon, even to the ladies' cabin at the opposite end, 
with a thick blue cloud which issued from countless bad pipes 
and cigars, enveloped the supper-tables, and bedimmed the 
glitter of the chandeliers. In that cloud supper was to be 
eaten. 

At a signal known only to the initiated I noticed that pipes 
were put out and quids cast out, and a mighty rush began. 
Two lines of battle were formed, confronting each other, with 
the table between them, each dauntless hero standing with 
foot advanced, and invincible right hand laid upon the back 
of a chair. In this way every place was secured at least five 
minutes before the thundering signal was given for the begin- 
ning of the conflict. At last the gong-bearing steward, pois- 
ing his dread right hand, anxiously watched by the hostile 
hosts, till the ladies were fairly seated, beat the terrible roll 
and, instantly, every chair was jerked back with a simulta- 



348 DOWK THE mSSISSIPPI. 

neous clash and clatter, every soldier plunged forward, every 
coat-tail was spread, and every pair of trousers was in its 
seat. 

Then, rallied by the gong from deck and state-room and 
stove, came the crowd of uninitiated ones, (^quorum pars parva 
fui,^ hungry, rueful-faced, dismayed, finding themselves in the 
unhappy position of the fifth calf that suckled the cow with 
but four teats, — compelled to wait until the rest had fed. 

After supper, there were music and dancing in the after- 
part of the saloon, and gambling, and clicking glasses, and 
everlasting talk about Yankees and nigo-ers and cotton, in the 
other part. There were a few Federal officers in their uni- 
forms, and a good many Rebel officers in civil dress. I recog- 
nized a thin sprinkling of Northern capitalists and business 
men. But the majority were Mississippi and Arkansas plant- 
ers going down the river to their estates : a strongly marked, 
unrefined, rather picturesque class, — hard swearers, hard 
drinkers, inveterate smokers and chevvers, wearing sad-colored 
linen for the most part, and clad in coarse " domestic," slouch- 
ing in their dress and manners, loose of tongue, free-hearted, 
good-humored, and sociable. They had been to Memphis to 
purchase supplies for their plantations, or to lease their planta- 
tions, or to hire freedmen, or to " buy Christmas " for their 
freedmen at home. They appeared to have plenty of money, 
if the frequency with which they patronized the bar was any 
criterion. Liquors on board the Mississippi steamers were 
twenty-five cents a glass, and the average cost of such dram- 
drinking as I witnessed could not have been less than three or 
four dollars a day for each man. A few did not seem to be 
much attracted by the decanters ; while others made drafts 
upon them every hour, or two or three times an hour, from 
moi-ning till bedtime, and were never sober, and never quite 
drunk. 

How shall I desci'ibe the conversation of these men ? Never 
a word did I hear fall from the lips of one of them concerning 
literature or the higher interests of life ; but their talk was of 
mules, cotton, niggers, money, Yankees, politics, and the 



RIVAL STEMIERS. 349 

Freedmen's Bureau, — thickly studded "svitli oaths, and gar- 
nished with joke and story. 

Once only I heard the subject of education indirectly alluded 
to. Said a young fellow, formerly the owner of fifty niggers, 
— "I 've gone to school-keeping." — " O Lord ! " said his 
companion, "you ha'n't come down to that! " 

I judged that most were married men, from a remark made 
by one of them : " A married man thinks less of personal ap- 
pearance than a bachelor. I 've done played out on that since 
I got spliced." 

There were a few Tennesseeans aboard, who envied the Mis- 
sissippians their Rebel State government, organized militia, and 
power over the freedmen. " We might make a pile, if we 
could only regulate the labor system. But that can't be done 
in this dog-goned Brownlow State. In Mississippi, if they 
can only carry out the laws they 've enacted, there '11 be a 
chance." It was impossible to convince these gentlemen that 
the freedmen could be induced to work by any other means 
than despotic compulsion. 

Leaving the gamblers over their cards, and the tipjilers over 
their glasses, I went to bed, — to be awakened at midnight by 
an inebriated gentleman (weight two hundred, as he thickly 
informed me) climbing into the berth above me. 

After a night of fog, Christmas morning dawned. In the 
cabin, the generous steward gave to each passenger a glass of 
ecrcT-no<T before breakfast : not because it was Christmas, but 
because passengers w^ere human, and egg-nog (especially the 
whiskey in it) was one of the necessities of life. 

The morning was warm and beautiful. Mists were chasing 
each other on the river, and clouds were chasing each other in 
the sky. A rival steamer was passing us. The decks of 
both boats were black with spectators watching the race, and 
making comments upon it : " Look how she piles the water 
up ahead of her ! " " She '11 open a gap of a mile between 
us in an hour 1 " and so forth. 

The river was about half a mile in breadth. We were run- 
ning down the broad current between high banks covered 



350 DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI. 

with forests, on one side, and sand-bars extending their broad 
yellow shelves out into the river, on tlie other. Sometimes 
the sand was on our right, then it shifted to our left ; it was 
nearly always to be seen on one side, but never on both sides 
at once. The river is continually excavating one bank and 
making another opposite, — now taking from Arkansas to give 
to Mississippi, and now robbing Mississippi to pay Arkansas, 
and thus year after year forming and destroying plantations. 
I remember one point on the Arkansas shore where the bank 
rose forty feet above the water, and was covered with trees 
eighteen inches in thickness : of which a gentleman of the 
country said to me, " That is all a recent formation. Forty 
years ago the bed of the river was where tliat bank is." The 
water was now tearing away again what it had so suddenly 
built up, trying to get back into its old bed. 

We were making landings at every plantation where pas- 
sengers or freight were to be put off, or a signal was shown 
from the shore. Sometimes a newspaper or piece of cloth was 
fluttered by negroes among the trees on the bank ; or a man 
who wished to come on board, stood on some exposed point 
and waved his handkerchief or hat. There was never a wharf, 
but the steamer, rounding to in the current, and heading up 
stream, went bunting its broad nose against the steep, yielding 
bank. The planks were pushed out ; the passengers stepped 
aboard or ashore, and the deck-hands landed the freight. 

Dirtier or more toilsome w^ork than this landing of the 
freight I have seldom seen. Heavy boxes, barrels of flour 
and whiskey, had to be lifted and rolled up steep paths in the 
soft sand to the summit of the bank. Often the paths were 
so narrow that but one man could get hold of the end of a 
barrel and lift it, while another hauled it from above, their 
feet sinking deep at every step. Imagine a gang of forty or 
fifty men engaged in landing boxes, casks, sacks of corn and 
salt, wagons, live-stock, ploughs ; hurrying, crowding, working 
in each other's way, sometimes slipi)ing and filling, the lost 
barrel tumbling down upon those below ; and the mate driv- 
ing them with shouts and curses and kicks, as if they were so 
many brutes. 



TOILSOME WORK AND BRUTAL TREATMENT. 351 

Here the plantations touched the river ; and tliere the land- 
ing-place was indicated by blazed trees in the forest, -where 
negroes and mules were in waiting. 

Wooding-up Avas always an interesting sight. A long wood- 
pile lines the summit of the bank, perhaps forty feet above the 
river. The steamer lands ; a couple of stages are hauled out : 
fifty men rush ashore and climb the bank ; the clerk accompa- 
nies them with pencil and paper and measuring-rod, to take 
account of the number of cords ; then suddenly down comes 
the wood in an amazing shower, rattling, sliding, bounding, 
and sometimes turning somersaults into the river. The bottom 
and side of the bank are soon covered by the deluge ; and the 
work of loading begins in equally lively fashion. The two 
stages are occupied by two files of men, one going ashore at a 
dog-trot, empty-handed, and another coming aboard with the 
wood. Each man catches up from two to four sticks, accord- 
ino- to their size or his own inclination, shoulders them, 
falls into the current, not of water, but of men, crosses the 
plank, and deposits his burden where the corded-wood, that 
stood so lately on the top of the bank, is once more taking 
shape, divided into two equally-balanced piles on each side of 
the boiler-deck. 

The men are mostly negroes, and the treatment they re- 
ceive from the mate is about the same as that which they 
received when slaves. He stands on the shore between the 
ends of the two stages, within convenient reach of both. Not 
a laggard escapes his eye or foot. Often he brandishes a bil- 
let of wood, with which he threatens, and sometimes strikes ; 
and now he flings it at the head of some artful dodger who 
has eluded his blow. And all the while you hear his hoarse, 
harsh voice iterating with horrible crescendo : " Get along, 
get along ! Out o' the way 'th that wood ! out o' the loay, out 
o' THE way! out O' the WAY! Git on, git on, GIT 
ON!" 

Meanwhile the men are working as hard as men can rea- 
sonably be expected to work ; and how they discipline their 
souls to endure such brutality is to me a mystery. 



/352 DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI. 

Planters got off at every landing, by day and night ; and 
although a few came aboard, the company was gradually thin- 
ning out. At one plantation a colony of sixty negroes landed. 
They had a " heap of plunder." Beds and bedding, trunks, 
tubs, hen-coops, old chests, old chairs, spinning-wheels, pots, 
and kettles, were put off under the mate's directions, without 
much ceremony. The dogs were caught and pitched into the 
river, much to the distress of the women and children, who 
appeared to care more for the animals than for any other por- 
tion of their property. These people had been hired for an 
adjoining plantation. The plantation at which we landed had 
been laid waste, and the mansion and negro-quarters burned, 
leaving a grove of fifty naked chimneys standing, — " monu- 
ments of Yankee vandalism," said my Southern friends. 

At one place a fashionably dressed couple came on board, 
and the gentleman asked for a state-room. Terrible was the 
captain's wrath. " God damn your soul," he said, " get off 
this boat ! " The gentleman and lady were colored, and they 
had been guilty of unpardonable impudence in asking for a 
state-room. 

" Kick the nio;o;er ! " " He ouo;ht to have his neck broke ! " 
" He ought to be hung ! " said the indignant passengers, by 
whom the captain's prompt and energetic action was strongly 
commended. 

The unwelcome couple went quietly ashore, and one of the 
hands pitched their trunk after them. They were in a dilem- 
ma : their clothes were too fine for a filthy deck passage, and 
their skins were too dark for a cabin passage. So they sat 
down on the shore to wait for the next steamer. 

" They won't find a boat that '11 take 'em," said the grim 
captain. " Anyhow, they can't force their damned nigger 
equality on to me ! " He was very indignant to think that he 
had landed at their signal. " The expense of running this 
boat is forty dollars an hour, — six thousand dollars a trip ; — 
and I can't afford to be fooled by a nigger ! " I omit the 
epithets. 

Afterwards I heard the virtuous passengers in calmer mo- 



SPRING FRESHETS. 353 

ments talking over the affair. " How would you feel," said 
one, with solemn emphasis, " to know that your wife was sleep- 
ing in the next room to a nigger and his tvife?''^ The argu- 
ment was unanswerable : it was an awful thought ! 

There is not a place of any importance on the river between 
Memphis and Vicksburg, a distance of four hundred miles. 
The nearest approach to an exception is Helena, on the Ar- 
kansas shore, a hastily built, high-perched town, looking as if 
it had flown from somewhere else and just lit. Another place 
of some note is Napoleon, which was burnt during the war. 
Here there is one of those natural "cut-offs" for which the 
Mississippi is remarkable ; the river having formed for itself a 
new channel, half a mile in length, across a tongue of land 
about which it formerly made a circuit of twelve miles. We 
passed through the cut-off, and afterwards made a voyage of 
six miles up the old channel, which resembles a long, placid, 
winding lake, to Beulah Landing, called after a novel of that 
name written by a Southern lady. 

I remember Beulah as the scene of a colored soldier's re- 
turn. He had no sooner landed from the steamer than his 
friends in waiting seized him, men, women, and girls, some 
grasping his hands, some clinging to his arms and waist, others 
hanging upon his neck, smothering him in their joyful em- 
braces. All who could reach him hugged him ; while those 
who could not reach him hugged those who were hugging 
him, as the next best thing to be done on the happy occasion. 

Below Napoleon, the cleared lands of many plantations ex- 
tend to the river, while others show only a border of trees 
along the shore. The banks were continually caving, masses 
of earth flaking off and falling into the turbid current, as we 
passed. The levees, neglected during the Avar, were often in 
a very bad condition. The river, encroaching upon the shores 
upon which these artificial embankments were raised, had 
made frequent breaches in them, and in many places swept 
them quite away ; so that whole plantations lay at the mercy 
of the usual spi-ing freshets, which render cotton culture on 
such unprotected lands impracticable. 

23 



354 DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI. 

The power and extent of these freshets is something aston- 
ishing. The river averages nearly half a mile in width. Its 
depth is very great, often exceeding one hundred feet. Its 
average velocity is something over two miles an hour. Yet 
when come the sudden rains and thaws, and the great tribu- 
taries, Avith their thousand lesser streams, pour their floods 
into the bosom of the Father of Waters, tliis huge artery be- 
comes but an insignificant channel for them, and they spread 
out into a vast lake inundating the valley. The course of the 
river is then traceable only by the swifter current in its vicin- 
ity, and by the broad sinuous opening through the forests. 
A crentleman of my acquaintance told me that in Bolivar 
County, Mississippi, he had ridden thirty miles back from the 
river, and seen all the way the marks of high water on the 
trees as far up as he could reach Avith his riding-whip. 

The crevasses, or breaks in the levees and banks, which 
occur at such times, are often terrific. Plantations are de- 
stroyed, and buildings swept away. Boats are drawn into the 
current and carried inland, to be landed, like the Ark, on the 
subsidence of the waters, or lost among the trees of the deep 
sw\amps. 

The violence of these freshets is said to be on the increase 
of late years, from two or three causes, — the drainage of 
newly cultivated lands ; and the cut-offs and the levees, which 
project the floods more directly upon the lower country, in- 
stead of retarding the water, and suffering it to spread out 
o-radually over the valley, naturally subject to its overflow. 

The best-protected plantations are those which are com- 
pletely surrounded by independent levees. " If my neighbor's 
levee breaks, my land is still defended," said a planter to me, 
describino- his estate. " Inside of the levee is a ditch by which 
the water that soaks in can all be drained to one place and 
thrown over the embankment by a steam-pump." 

I learned something of the planter's anxiety of mind during 
the great floods. " Many is the time I 've sat up all night 
just like these mates, looking after the levee on my planta- 
tion. Come a wind from the right direction, I 'd catch up a 



TIIE ANTICIPATED NEGRO INSURRECTIONS. 355 

lantern, and go out, and maybe find the water witliin three or 
four inches of the top. In some places a little more would 
send it over and make a break. IVIy heart would be nigh 
about to melt, as I watched it. Sometimes I waited, all night 
long, to see whether the water would go an inch higher. If it 
did n't, I was safe ; if it did, I was a ruined man." 

On some of the levees negroes were at work making the 
necessary repairs ; but I was told that many plantations would 
remain unprotected and uncultivated until another year. 

I had heard much about the anticipated negro insurrections 
at Christmas time. But the only act of violence that came to 
my knowledge, committed on that day, was a little affair that 
occurred at Skipwith's Landing, on the Mississippi shore, a few 
miles below the Arkansas and Louisiana line. Four mounted 
o-uerillas, wearing tlie Confederate uniform, and cairying 
Spencer rifles, rode into the place, robbed a store kept by a 
Northern man, robbed and murdered a negro, and rode off 
again, unmolested. Very little was said of this trifling oper- 
ation. If such a deed, however, had been perpetrated by 
freed men, the whole South would have rung with it, and the 
cry of " Kill the niggers I " would have been heard from the 
Rio Grande to the Atlantic. 



356 IN AND ABOUT VICKSBURG. 



CHAPTER L. 

IN AND ABOUT VICKSBURG. 

On the afternoon of the third day we came in sight of 
Vicksburg, — four hundred miles from Men-i])his by water, 
although not more than half that distance in a straight line, so 
voluminous are the coils of the Great River. 

The town, seen across the intervening tongue of land as we 
approached it, — situated on a high bluif, with the sunlight on 
its hills and roofs and fortifications, — was a fine sight. It 
diverted my attention, so that I looked in vain for the famous 
canal cut across the tongue of land, which pushes out from 
the Louisiana shore, and about which the river makes an ex- 
tensive curve. 

" You could n't have found it without looking mighty 
close," said a native of the country. " It 's a little small 
concern. The Yankees made just a big ditch to let the 
water through, thinking it would wash out, and make a cut- 
off. If it had, Farragut's fleet could have got through, and 
Vicksburg would have been flanked, high and dry. But, in 
the first place, they did not begin the ditch where the current 
strikes the shore ; in the next place the water fell before the 
ditch was completed, and never run through it at all." 

On the opposite shore, overlooking this peninsula and the 
winding river, stands Vicksburg, on the brow of a line of 
bluffs which sweep down from the north, here first striking 
the Mississippi. In this ridge the town is set, — to compare 
gross things with fine, — like a diamond in the back of a ring. 
It slopes up rapidly from the landing, and is built of brick and 
wood, not beautiful on a nearer view. 

The hills are cut through, and their sides sliced off, by the 
deeply indented streets of the upper portion of the city. Here 



THE SHELLING OF YICKSBURCx. 357 

and there are crests completely cut around, isolated, and left 
standing like yellowish square sugar-loaves with irregular tops. 
These excavations afforded the inhabitants fine facilities for 
burrowing during the siege. The base of the hills and the 
cliff-like banks of the dug streets present a most curious ap- 
pearance, being completely honey-combed with caves, which 
still remain, a source of astonishment to the stranger, who 
half fancies that a colony of large-sized bank-swallows has 
been industriously at work there. 

The majority of the caves were mere "gopher-holes," as 
the soldiers call them. Others were quite spacious and aris- 
tocratic. The entrance was usually large enough to admit a 
person stooping slightly ; but within, the roofs of the best 
caves Avere hollowed sufficiently to permit a man to stand up- 
right. The passage by wdiich you entered commonly branched 
to the right and left, forming with its two arms a sort of letter 
Y, or letter T. 

Every family had its cave. But only a few of the more 
extensive ones were permanently occupied. " Ours " (said a 
lady resident) " was very large and quite comfortable. There 
w^as first the entrance, imder a pointed arch ; then a long cross- 
gallery. Boards were laid down the whole length and covered 
with carpets. Berths were put up at the sides, where we slept 
very well. At first we did not take off our dresses when we 
lay down ; but in a little while we grew accustomed to un- 
dressing and retiring regularly. In the morning we found 
our clothes quite wet from the natural dampness of the cave. 
Over the entrance there was built a little arbor, where our 
cooking was done, and where we sat and talked with our 
neighbors in the daytime, when there were no shells dropping. 
In the night the cave was lighted up. We lived this sort of 
life six weeks." 

But few buildings were destroyed by the shells. Those 
that Avere partially injured had generally been patched up. 
After the twenty-sixth of May, when the bombardment be- 
came almost incessant, being continued night and day, it was 
estimated that six thousand shells were thrown into the city 



358 EN" AND ABOUT VICKSBUEG. 

by the mortars on the river-side every t-\venty-four hours. 
Grant's siege guns, in the rear of the bhiffs, dropped daily 
four thousand more along the Rebel lines. The little damage 
done by so great a bombardment is a matter of surprise. The 
soldiers had also their " gopher-holes," and laughed at the 
projectiles. Of the women and children in the town, only 
three were killed and twelve injured. 

Both citizens and troops suffered more from the scarcity of 
provisions than from the abundance of shells. On both the 
river and land sides the city Avas com])letely cut off' fi-om sup- 
plies. The garrison was put upon fourteen-and-a-half- ounce 
rations ; and in the tovv'n, mule-meat, and even dog-meat, 
became luxuries. 

The day after my arrival I joined a small equestrian party, 

got up by Lieutenant E for my benefit, and rode out to 

visit the fortifications behind the city. We first came to the 
line of works thrown up by our troops after the capitulation. 
Exterior to these, zigzagging along the eastern brow of the 
bluflfs, from the Mississippi, below Vicksburg, to the Yazoo 
River on the North, a distance of near fifteen miles, were the 
original Rebel defences, too extensive to be manned by less 
than a large army. 

Three miles northeast of the city we passed Fort Hill, in the 
"crater" of which, after the Rebel bastions had been success- 
fully mined and blown up, occurred one of the most desperate 
fights that marked the siege. Pushed up dangerously near 
to the Rebel position, is the advanced Federal line. Between 
the two, a little way down the slope from Fort Hill, is the spot 
rendered historic by the interview which terminated the long 
struggle for the key to the Mississippi. There, in full view 
of the confronting armies, the two commanding generals met 
under an oak-tree, and had their little talk. 

Every vestige of the tree, root and branch, had long since 
disappeared, — cut up, broken up, dug up, and scattered over 
the country in the form of relics ; and we found on the spot 
a monument, which bids fair to have a similar fate. 

This was originally a neat granite shaft, erected by a private 



SHERMAN'S UNSUCCESSFUL ASSAULT. 359 

subscription among officers and soldiers of the national army, 
and dedicated on July 4th, 1864, the first anniversary of the 
surrender of the city. It bears the following inscription : — 

SITE OF 

INTERVIEW BETWEEN" 

MAJOR-GENERAL GRANT, U. S. A., 

AND 

LIEUTENANT-GENERAL PEMBERTON, 
JULY 4, 

1863. 

Nothing certainly could be more simple and modest. Not a 
syllable is there to wound the sensibilities of a fallen foe. Yet, 
since the close of the war, when the returning Confederates 
first obtained access to this monument, it had been shamefully 
mutilated. The fact that it was never injured before, and 
the circumstance that the eagle and shield of the escutcheon 
surmounting the inscription had been nearly obliterated by 
persistent battering and grinding, showed that no mere relic- 
hunters had been hammering here, but that the mischief had 
been done by some enemy's hand. The shaft was enclosed 
by a handsome iron fence, Avhich we found broken and partly 
thrown down. 

From the monument we rode northward over ridges crowned 
with zigzag fortifications, around steep crests and slopes, and 
past deep ravines green with tangled cane-brakes, — a broken 
and wild region ; crossing over through woods and hilly cotton- 
fields to the Avestern brow of the blufts, where Sherman made 
his unsuccessful assault in the gloomy last days of 1862. 

We reined up our horses on a commanding point, and looked 
down upon the scene of the battle. Away on our left was the 
Mississippi, its bold curve sweeping in from the west, and doub- 
ling southward toward the city. Before us, under the bluff, 
was the bottom across which our forces charged, through the 
bristling abatis and their terrible entanglements, and in the 
face of a murderous fire captured the Rebel rifle-pits, — a most 
heroic, bloody, but worse than useless work. 



860 IN a:n^d about vicksburg. 

Finding a road that Avonnd down the steep hill-sides, we 
galloped through the cotton-fields of the bottom to Chickasaw 
Bayou, which bounded them on the west, — a small stream flow- 
ing down through swamps and lagoons, from the Yazoo, and 
emptying into the Mississippi below the battle-field. We rode 
along its bank, and found one of the bridges by which our 
forces had crossed. Beyond were ancient woods, sombre and 
brown, bearded with long pendant moss. 

Returning across the bottom, the Lieutenant guided us to 
three prominent elevations in the midst of the plain, which 
proved to be Indian mounds of an interesting character. The 
largest was thirty feet in height, and one hundred and fifty 
feet across the base. Leaving the ladies in the saddle, the 
Lieutenant and myself hitched our horses to a bush on one of 
the smaller mounds, and entered an excavation which he had 
assisted in making on a former visit. 

We found the earth full of human bones and antique pot- 
tery. A little digging exposed entire skeletons sitting upright, 
in the posture in which they had been buried, — who knows 
how many centuries before ? Who were these ancient people, 
over whose unknown history the past had closed, as the earth 
had closed over their bodies? Perhaps these burial-mounds 
marked the scene of some great battle on tlie very spot where 
the modern fight took place. 

We found the surface of the mound, washed by the storms 
of centuries, speckled with bits of bones, yellowish, decayed, 
and often friable to the touch. Fragments of pottery were 
also exposed, ornamented in a variety of styles, showino- that 
this ancient people was not without rude arts. 

The cotton-fields on the bluffs and in the bottom were cul- 
tivated by a colony of freedmen, whose village of brown huts 
we passed, on the broad hill-side above the river, as we returned 
to tlie city. 

The ride back over the western brow of the bluffs was one 
to be remembered. The sun was setting over the forests and 
plains of Louisiana, which lay dark on the horizon, between the 
splendid sky and the splendid, wide-spreading river reflecting 



"WILL THE FREEDMEN WORK?" 361 

it. Every cloud, every fugitive fleece, was saturated -with fire. 
Tlie river was a flood of molten gold. The ever-varying glor}^ 
seemed prolonged for our sakes. The last exquisite tints had 
scarcely flided, leaving the river dark and melancholy, sweep- 
ing between its solitary shores, when we left the crests, with 
the half-moon sailing in a thinly-clouded sky above our heads, 
and descended, by the deep-cut, narrow streets, and through 
the open gates at the breastworks, into the city. 

The next day, in company with Major-Gencral Wood, in 
command of the Department of Mississippi, I visited the forti- 
fications below Vicksburg. For a mile and a half we rode 
along beside banks perforated with " gopher-holes " dug by 
the Rebel soldiers, and lines of rifle-pits, which consisted often 
of a mere trench cut across the edge of a crest. These were 
the river-side defences. The real fortifications commenced 
with a strono- fort constructed on a commanding bluft'. This 
did not abut on the river, as maps I had seen, and descriptions 
I had read, had led me to expect. Below the city a tract of 
low bottom-land opens between the river and the bluffs, of 
such a nature that no very formidable attack was to be appre- 
hended in that quarter. Standing upon the first redan, we 
saw a mile or two of low land and tangled and shaggy cypress 
swamps intervening between us and the glimpses of shining 
lio-ht which indicated the southward course of the Mississippi. 

In this excursion, as in that of the previous day, I noticed 
on every side practical answers to the question, " Will the 
freedmen work ? " In every broken field, in every available 
spot on the rugged crests, was the negro's httle cotton patch. 

Riding through the freedmen's quarter below the town the 
General and I called at a dozen or more different cabins, put- 
tin «• to every person we talked with the inquiry, — how large 
a proportion of the colored people he knew were shiftless char- 
acters. We got very candid replies : the common opinion 
being that about five out of twenty still had a notion of living 
without work. Yet, curiously enough, not one would admit 
that he was one of the five, — every man and woman acknowl- 
edging that labor was a universal duty and necessity. 



362 FREE LABOR LSf MISSISSIPPI. 



CHAPTER LI. 

FREE LABOR IN MISSISSIPPI. 

Colonel Thomas, Assistant-Commissioner of the Freed- 
men's Bureau for the State of Mississippi, stationed at Vicks- 
buro-, cave the negroes more credit for industry than they 
gave each other. In the large towns, to which vagrancy nat- 
urally gravitates, one in four was probably a fair estimate of 
the proportion of colored people unable or unwilling to earn 
an honest livelihood. " But I am confident," said the Colonel, 
" there is no more industrious class of people anywhere than 
the freedmen wdio have little homesteads of their own. The 
colonies under my charge, working lands assigned them by 
the government, have raised this year ten thousand bales of 
cotton, besides corn and vegetables for their subsistence until 
another harvest." 

Other well-informed and experienced persons corroborated 
this statement. Dr. Warren, Superintendent of Freedmen's 
Schools in Mississippi, told me of a negro family, consisting of 
one man, three women, and a half-grown girl, who took a lot 
of five acres, which they worked entirely with shovel and hoe, 
havino- no mule, and on which they had that season cleared 
five hundred dollars, above all expenses. I heard of numerous 
other well-authenticated instances of the kind. 

Dr. Warren spoke of the great eagerness of the blacks to 
buy or lease land, and have homes of their own. This he 
said accounted in a great measure for their backwardness in 
makino- contracts. He said to one intelligent freedman : " The 
whites intend to compel you to hire out to them." The latter 
rephed : " What if we should compel them to lease us lands ? " 

There were other reasons why the blacks would not con- 
tract. At Vicksburg, a gentleman who had been fifty miles 



"HONESTY" OF A SOUTHERN PLANTER. 363 

up the valley looking for a plantation, said to me : " The ne- 
groes everywhere I went have been shamefully abused. They 
had been promised that if they would remain and work the 
plantations, they should have a share of the crops ; and now 
the planters refuse to give them anything. They have no 
confidence in Southern men, and will not hire out to them ; 
but they are very eager to engage with Northern men." 

This was the universal testimony, not only of travellers, but 
of candid Southern planters. One of the latter class explained 
to me how it Avas that the freedman was cheated out of his 
share of the crop. After the cotton is sent to market, the 
proprietor calls uj) his negroes, and tells them he has " fur- 
nished them such and such things, for Avhich he has charged 
so much, and that there are no profits to divide. The darkey 
don't understand it, — he has kept no accounts; but he knows 
he has worked hard and got nothino;. He won't hire to that 
man again. But I, and any other man who has done as he 
agreed with his niggers, can hire now as many as we want." 

Colonel Thomas assured me that two thirds of the laborers 
in the State had been cheated out of their wages during the 
past year. 

INIr. C , a Northern man who had taken a plantation at 

, (I omit names, for he told me that not only his property 

but his life depended upon the good-will of his neighbors,) re- 
lated to me his experience. He hired his plantation of a gen- 
tleman noted for his honesty : " He goes by the name of 

' Honest M ' all through the country. But honesty 

appeared to be a virtue to be exercised only towards white 
people : it was too good to be thrown away on niggers. This 

M has four hundred sheep, seventy milch cows, fifteen 

horses, ten mules, and forty hogs, all of which Avere saved 
from the Yankees Avhen they raided through the country, by 

an old negro who run them off across a §wamp. Honest M 

has never given that negro five cents. Another of his slaves 
had a cow of his own from which he raised a fine pair of 

oxen : Honest M lays claim to those oxen and sells them. 

A slave-woman that belono-ed to him had a cow she had raised 



864 FEEE LABOR IK MISSISSIPPI. 

from a calf: Honest M takes that, and adds it to his herd. 

He promised his niggers a share of the cro})s this year ; but he 
has sold the cotton, and locked up the corn, and never given 
one of them a dollar. And all this time he thinks he is honest : 
he thinks Northern capitalists treat free laborers in this way. 
You can't get it through the heads of these Southei'u planters 
that the laboring class has any rights. 

" Honest M has two plantations," continued Mr. C : 

" he rents me one of them. But he gave me notice at the 
start that he should take all the niggers from my plantation, 
and that I must look out for my own help. When I went 
to take possession I was astonished to find the niggers all 
there. 

" ' How 's this ? ' I said. ' I thought these people were 
going with vou ? ' 

" He said he could n't induce one of them to contract ; and 
he had about given up the idea of running his other plan- 
tation, because the niggers would n't work. He had offered 
twenty-five dollars a month, with board and medical attend- 
ance, and they would n't engage to him even for that. 

" ' Well,' said I, ' if you have got through I should like to 
hire them.' 

" He said I was welcome to try. They knew me to be a 
Northern man, and when I called them around me for a talk, 

they all came with grinning faces. Said I : ' Mr. M offers 

you twenty-five dollars a month. That is more than I can 
afford to pay, and I think you 'd better hire to him.' They 
looked stolid : they could n't see it : they did n't want to work 
for him at any price. 

" Then I said, ' If you won't work for him, will you 
work for me ? ' I never saw faces light up so in my life. 
' Yes, master ! Yes, master ! ' ' But,' said I, ' ten dollars a 
month is all I can afford to pay.' That made no difference, 
they said ; they 'd rather work for ten dollars, and be sure of 
their pay, than for twenty-five dollars, and be cheated out of , 
it. I gave them a day to think of it : then they all came for- 
ward and made contracts, with one exception. They went 



FREEDLIEX AND SOUTHERN PLANTERS. 365 

right ta work with a will : I won't ask men to do any better 
than they have been doing. They are having their Christmas 
frolic now, and it 's as merry a Christmas as ever you saw ! " 

I met with many planters in the situation of Honest M . 

Having made arrangements to run their plantations, and got in 
the necessary supplies, they had discovered that " the niggers 
would n't contract." They were then trying to lease their 
lands to Northern capitalists. 

I have seldom met a more anxious, panic-stricken set of 
men than the planters I saw on the steamer going down to 
Vicksburg to hire freedmen. Observing the success of North- 
ern men, they had suddenly awakened to the great fact that, 
although slavery was lost, all was not lost, and that there was 
still a chance to make something out of the nigger. They 
could not hire their own freedmen, and were going to see 
what could be effected with freedmen to whom they were not 
known. Each seemed to fear lest his neighbor should get 
the start of him. 

" They 're just crazy about the niggers," said one, a Mis- 
sissippian, who was about the craziest of the set, — " crazy to 
get hold of 'em." 

" But," I remarked, " they say the freedmen won't work." 
" Well, they won't," said my Mississippi friend, unflinch- 
ingly. 

" Then what do you want of them ? " 

" Well, I found everybody else was going in for hiring 'em, 
and if anything was to be made, I did n't want to be left out 
in the cold." Adding with great candor and earnestness : "if 
everyhody else ivould have refused to hire 'em anyhoiu^ that would 
have just suited me : Pd have been willing to let my phmtation 
go to the devil for one year, just to see the free niggers starve.'''' 

I saw this gentleman afterwards in Vicksburg, and was not 
deeply grieved to learn that he had failed to engage a single 
freedman. " They are hiring to Northern men," said he, bit- 
terly ; " but they won't hire to Southern men anyhow, if they 
can help it." 

" How do you account for this singular fact ? " I asked. 



366 FREE LABOE IN MISSISSIPPI. 

" I don't know. They 've no confidence in us ; hut they 
imagine the Yankees will do wonders hy 'em. The Southern 
people are really their hest friends." At which stereotyped 
bit of cant I could not fox'bear a smile. 

The usual terms proposed by the planters were one hundred 
and fifty dollars, for a full hand, payable at the end of the 
year ; together with doctors' bills, two hundred pounds of 
pork, and a peck of meal a week. 

The terms most approved by Colonel Thomas were as fol- 
lows : Fifteen dollars a month, with food, including flour, 
sugar, and molasses ; a little patch of ground for each family, 
and Saturday afternoon, for the raising of their own vegeta- 
bles ; the freedmen to clothe themselves. 

The planters insisted on furnishing all needful supplies, and 
charging the blacks for them when not stipulated for in the 
contract. The alleged reason for this was that the negroes, if 
allowed to buy their own supplies, would spend half their time 
in running about the country for knick-knacks. But the better 
class of planters admitted that the system was liable to gross 
abuse. " I have neighbors," said one, " who keep stores of 
plain goods and fimcy articles for their people ; and, let a nig- 
ger w^ork ever so hard, and earn ever so high wages, he is 
sure to come out in debt at the end of the year." 

Those who had given the free-labor system a fair trial ad- 
mitted that the negro would work as well as ever before, while 
in the field, — some said better ; but he would not work as 
many hours. 

" How many hours did he formerly work ? " I inquired ; 
and received the following statement with regard to what was 
done on a well-regulated Mississippi plantation. 

" Mr. P 's niggers were in the field at daylight. It was 

so in the longest days of summer, as at other times of the year. 
They worked till six o'clock, when their breakfast was carried 
to them. They had just time enough allowed them to eat their 
breakfast ; then they worked till noon, when their dinner was 
carried to them. They had an hour for their dinner. At six 
o'clock theu- supper was carried to them. Then they worked 



OVERSEERS AND NEGROES. 367 

till dark. There were cisterns in the field, where they got 
their water. Nobody was allowed to leave the field from the 
time they entered it in the morning until work was over at 
ni(^ht. That was to save time. The women who suckled 
babies had their babies carried to them. A little nigger-boy 
used to drive a mule to the field with a cart full of nigger 
babies ; and the women gave the brats their luncheon while 
they ate their own. So not a minute was lost." 

And this was the plantation of a " liberal " OM^ner, worked 
by a " considerate and merciful overseer." It appeared, ac- 
cording to the planters' own statements, that their slaves used 
to work at least sixteen hours a day in summer, — probably 
more, for they had chores to do at home after dark. That 
they should not choose to keep up such a continual strain on 
their bodily faculties, now that they were free, did not appear 
to me very unreasonable, — but that was perhaps because I 
was prejudiced. 

Under the old system, many plantations were left entirely 
to the management of overseers, the owners living in some 
pleasant town where they enjoyed the advantages of society 
for themselves and of schools for their children. The overseer 
wdio could pi'oduce the most cotton to the hand was in great 
request, and commanded the highest wages. The natural 
result was that both lands and negroes were often worked to a 
ruinous excess. But the occupation of these best overseers 
was now gone. Not a freedman would hire out to work on 
plantations where they were known to be employed. Some 
managed, however, to avoid being thrown out of business by 
attaching themselves to other plantations, and changing their 
title. With the negroes a name is imposing. Many would 
engage cheerfully to work under a " superintendent," who 
would not have entered the field under an " overseer." 

But it is easier to change an odious name than an odious 
character. Said a candid Southern planter to me, " I should 
get along very well with my niggers, if I could only get my 
superintendent to treat them decently. Instead of cheering 
and encouraging them, he bullies and scolds them, and some- 



368 FREE LABOR IN MISSISSIPPI. 

times so far forgets himself as to kick and beat tliem. Now 
they are free they won't stand it. They stood it when they 
were slaves, because they had to. He can't get the notion 
cut of his head that they are still somehow slaves. When I 
see things going right badly, I take him, and give him a good 
talking to. Then for about three days he '11 use 'em better, 
and everything goes smooth. But the first I know, there 's 
more bullying and beating, and there 's more niggers bound to 
quit.' 

Meanwhile the Christmas holidays were effecting a change 
in the prospects of free labor for the coming year. I never 
witnessed in so short a time so complete a revolution in public 
feeling. One day it seemed that everybody was in despair, 
complaining that the niggers would n't work ; the next, 
Everybody was rushing to employ them. And the freedmen, 
who, before Christmas, had refused to make contracts, vaguely 
hoping that lands would be given them by the government, or 
leased to them by their owners, now came forward to make 
the best terms they could. The presence of the Bureau at 
this time in the South was an incalculable benefit to both par- 
ties. It Inspired the freedmen with confidence, and persuaded 
them, with the promise of its protection, to hire out once more 
to the Southern planters. The trouble was, that there was not 
labor enough in the State to supply the demand. Many ne- 
groes had enlisted in the war ; others had wandered back to 
the slave-breeding States from which they had been sold ; 
others had become small proprietors ; and others had died, in 
consequence of the great and sudden change in their circum- 
stances which the war had brought about. 



NEW BLACK CODES. 



CHAPTER LII. 

A RECONSTRUCTED STATE. 

It seemed impossible for the people of Mississippi — and the 
same may be said of the Southern people generally — to mi- 
derstand the first principle of the free-labor system. Their 
notions of it were derived from what they had seen of the 
shiftless poor whites about them, demoralized by an institution 
that rendered labor disreputable. They could not conceive of 
a man devoting, himself voluntarily to hard manual toil, such 
as they had never seen performed except under the lash. 
Some compulsory system seemed to them indispensable. 
Hence the new black codes passed by the reconstructed legis- 
latures of several States. 

Mississippi, like South Carolina, on returning to the fold of 
the Union, from which those innocent lambs had strayed, made 
haste to pass apprentice laws, vagrant laws, and laws relating 
to contracts and labor, designed to bring back the freedmen 
under the planters' control. " An Act to regulate the Relation 
of Master and Apprentice," passed in November, 1865, pro- 
vides that " all freedmen, free negroes, and mulattoes, uhder 
the age of eighteen, who are orphans," or are not maintained 
by their parents, shall be apprenticed " to some competent and 
suitable person," — the former owner to "have the prefer- 
ence ; " that "the said apprentices shall be bound by inden- 
ture. In the case of males until they are twenty-one years old, 
and in case of females until they are eighteen years old " ; 
that said master or mistress shall have power to inflict " mod- 
erate corporal chastisement " ; that in case the apprentice 
leaves them without their consent, he may be committed to 
jail, and '•'• punished as provided for the punishment of hired 
freedmen, as may be from time to time provided fov by laiv,^^ — 

24 



370 A EECONSTRUCTED STATE. 

the meaning of which is clear, although the grammatical con- 
struction is muddy ; and that any person who shall employ, 
feed, or clothe an apprentice who has deserted his master, 
" shall be deemed guilty of a high misdemeanor," and so forth. 

It will be seen that, by this act, (approved November 22d, 
1865,) not merely children without means of support may be 
thus bound out under a modified system of slavery, but that 
young girls, and lads of from fourteen to eighteen, capable not 
only of supporting themselves, but of earning perhaps the 
wages of a man or woman, may be taken from the employ- 
ment of their choice and compelled to serve without wages 
the master or mistress assigned them by the court. 

" An Act t» amend the Vagrant Laws of the State " pro- 
vides that " all freedmen over the age of eighteen years, found 
on the second Monday in January, 1866, or thereafter, with 
no lawful employment or business," (as if no man was ever 
honestly without employment,) " or found unlawfully assem- 
bling themselves together either in the day or night time, 
shall be deemed vagrants, and on conviction thereof shall be 
fined in the sum of not exceeding fifty dollars, and imprisoned 
at the discretion of the court not exceeding ten days " ; pro- 
vided, however, that in case any freedman " shall fail for five 
days after the imposition of said fine to pay the same, that it 
' shall be, and is hereby, made the duty of the sheriff of the 
proper county to hire out said freedman to any person who 
will 'for the shortest period of service pay said fine or forfeiture 
and all costs." 

A bill " To confer Civil Rights on Freedmen, and for other 
Purposes," enacts " That all freedmen, free negroes, and mulat- 
toes may sue and be sued, implead and be impleaded in all the 
courts of law and equity of this State, and may acquire per- 
sonal property and choses in action, by descent or purchase, 
and may dispose of the same, in the same manner, and to the 
same extent that white persons may : Provided that the pro- 
visions of this section shall not he so construed as to allow any 
freedman^ free negro, or mulatto to rent or lease any lands or 
tenements, except in incorporated towns and cities.'^ 



INJUSTICE OF THE LAWS. 371 

Not to speak of the gross injustice of this last pro^'^sion, 
what shall be said of the wisdom of that legislation whicli pro- 
hibits an entire laboring class from acquiring real estate in the 
country, where their presence and energies are indispensable, 
and holds out an inducement for them to flock to the towns, 
which are crowded with them already, but where alone they 
can hope to become freeholders ? 

Another section of this bill enacts that freedmen shall be 
competent witnesses in all cases where freedmen are parties to 
the suit, or where a crime is alleged to have been committed 
by a white person upon the person or property of a freedman. 
But it does not give them the power to testify in cases in which 
only white persons are concerned. All the negro testimony 
bills which I have seen, passed by the legislatures of the re- 
constructed States under gentle pressure from Washington, 
are marked by this singular inconsistency. If the negro is a 
competent witness in cases in which his own or his' fellow's 
interests are involved, he is certainly a competent witness in 
cases involving only the interests of white persons. He is 
permitted to give evidence when there may exist a tempta- 
tion for him to swear flilsely, and not when there is no such 
temptation. By the enactment of such laws the whites are 
in reality legislating against themselves. Even Governor 
Humphreys — late Rebel general, but now the reconstructed 
executive of the "loyal " State of Mississippi, elected for his 
services in the Confederate cause — in his message to this 
same legislature, favoring the admission of negroes into the 
courts as an indispensable step towards ridding the State of 
the military power, and of " that black incubus, the Freed- 
man's Bureau," made this suggestive statement : — 

" Tliere are few men living in the South who have not 
known many white criminals to go ' unwhipt of justice ' be- 
cause negro testimony was not permitted in the courts. 

The act " To confer Civil Rights on the Freedmen," proceeds 
to make the following provisions, which look much more like 
wrongs : " That every freedman, free negro, and mulatto 
shall, on the second Monday of January, one thousand eight 



372 A RECONSTRUCTED STATE. 

hundred and sixty-six, and annually thereafter, have a lawful 
home or employment,'' (of course on any terms that may be 
offered him,) " and shall have written evidence thereof, as 
follows, to wit : If living in any incorporated city, town, or 
village, a license from the Mayor thereof; and if living outside 
of any incorporated city, town, or village, from the member of 
the Board of Police of his beat, authorizing him or her to 
do irregular and job work, or a written contract, as provided 
in section sixth of this act ; which licenses may be revoked for 
cause, at any time, by the authority granting the same." 

Section sixth enacts : " That all contracts for labor made 
with freedmen, free negroes, and mulattoes, for a longer period 
than one month, shall be in writing and in duplicate ; . . . . 
and said contracts shall be taken and held as entire contracts ; 
and if the laborer shall quit the sexwice of the employer before 
expiration of his term of service, without good cause, he shall 
forfeit his wages for that year up to the time of quitting." But 
who is to be the judge with regard to the " good cause ? " 
The white man, of course, and not the negro. 

" Section 7. Be it further enacted. That every civil officer 
shall, and every person may, arrest and carry back to his or 
her legal employer any freedman, free negro, or mulatto, who 
shall have quit the service of his or her employer before the 
expiration of his or her term of service." 

Section ninth provides that if any person " shall hnoivingly 
employ any such deserting freedman^ free negro ^ or mulatto^ or 
shall Jmoivingly give or sell to any such deserting freedman, free 
negro, or mulatto any food, raiment, or other thing, he or she 
.shall he guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon co7ivictio'n, shall he 
fined not less than twenty-five dollars, and not more than two 
hundred dollars and the costs^ 

These extracts — which I have made verbatim from an au- 
thorized copy of the recent State laws, with only such abridg- 
ments as were necessary to compress them within reasonable 
limits — show plainly enough what ideas prevail in the late 
Slave States on the subject of free labor. The design of all 
such enactments is simply to place both the labor and the 



CONVENTION AND LEGISLATURE. 373 

laborer in the power of the employer, and to reorganize slavery 
under a new name. The fact that they are practically set 
aside and annulled by the military power and the Freedmcn's 
Bureau, does not set aside or annul the spirit which dictated 
them. This still animates the people of the South ; and I was 
often plainly told that as soon as the States were fully restored 
to their rights, just such laws as these would certainly be put in 
force. I remarked to a Mississippi planter, " Do you not think 
it was unwise for your Legislature to pass such a code of laws ? " 
" Yes, it was unwise, at this time,'' he replied, not understand- 
ing the scope of my question. " We showed our hand too soon. 
We ought to have waited till the troops were withdrawal, and 
our representatives admitted to Congress ; then we could have 
had everything our own way." 

Since the admission of negro testimony in the civil courts 
of the State, the freedmen's courts had been discontinued, — 
greatly to the disadvantage of the colored race. The civil 
courts could hardly be induced to give the negro's cause a 
hearino-. There were some exceptions ; and at Vicksburg I 
found a judge who seemed inclined to administer justice with- 
out regard to the prejudice against color. This was Judge 
Yerger, an original Union man, — one of the seven (against 
seventy-eight) who voted No, on the adoption of the ordinance 
of secession in the Convention of 1861 ; the same who, when 
asked by a member what title should be given to that act, re- 
plied, " Call it An Ordinance for the Abolition of Slavery and 
the Desolation of the South.'' 

Yerger was the President of the new Convention that recon- 
structed the State. That Convention was animated by a very 
different temper from that shown by the new Legislature. The 
Convention was composed of the best men in Mississippi, who 
went prepared to do what the Government at Washington had a 
right to expect of rebellious States returning to their allegiance ; 
the Legislature was made up of a different class, elected after 
the people of the South had been encouraged in their animosity 
and arrogance by the discovery that treason was not to be 
punished, nor made particularly odious. The Convention was 



874 A RECONSTRUCTED STATE. 

governed by men of large influence and liberal views ; the 
Legislature was controlled bj narrow-minded intermeddlers, 
mostly from the poorer districts of the State, where the inhab- 
itants hated the negroes the more by way of revenge for having 
owned so few. 

It was claimed by the better class that the Legislature did 
not represent them, and there was talk of calling another State 
Convention. But the Legislature, although it did not carry 
out the views of the moi'e enlightened and progressive citizens, 
nor reflect in any way the sentiments of the great mass of true 
Union men in the South, namely, the blacks, represented quite 
faithfully the majority by which it was elected. 

I have already alluded to the organizing of the State 
militia, — an abuse that luifortunately received the sanction 
of the Administration. The only possible excuse for it was 
the cry raised regarding anticipated negro insurrections. To 
guard against danger from a c^lass whose loyalty and good 
behavior during the war challenged the admiration of the 
world, arms were put into the hands of Confederate sol- 
diers who had returned to their homes reeking with tlie 
blood of the nation. Power was taken from the friends 
of the government and put into the hands of its enemies. 
The latter immediately set to work disarming the former. 
They plundered their houses, under the pretence of searching 
for weapons ; committing robberies, murders, and other atroci- 
ties, with authentic reports of which pages might be filled. 
Neither were white men, known to sympathize with the Union 
party of the North, safe from their violence. Governor Hum- 
phreys himself, startled by the magnitude of the evil that had 
been called into existence, told Colonel Thomas that he had 
been obliged to disband several militia companies already or- 
ganized, " on learning that they were sworn to kill negroes 
asserting their independence, and to drive ofl' Northern men." 

Of what was being done by private parties outside of the 
militia organizations, a curious glimpse is given in the fol- 
lowing " general order," published in the Holmesville (Miss.) 
" Independent " : — 



CANT ABOUT NEGRO INSURRECTIONS. 375 

" [General Order No. 1.] 

" SuAiMiT, Miss., Nov. 28, 1865. 

"In obedience to an order of His Excellency, the Governor of 
]VIississip[ii, I have this day assumed command of all the militia in 
this section of the State, with head-quarters at this place. And 
whereas it has been reported to me that there are various individ- 
uals, not belonging to any military organization, either State or Fed- 
eral, who arc engaged in shooting at, and sometimes killing, the freed- 
men on private account; and whereas there are other white men 
reported as the attendants of, and participants in, the negro balls, who, 
after placing themselves upon a social equality with the people of 
color, raise quarrels with the freedmen, upon questions of social 
superiority already voluntarily waived and relinquished by them in 
favor of the negro, by which the peace of the country is broken and 
the law disregarded ; I therefore order the arrest of all such offend- 
ers, by the officers and soldiers under my command, and that they be 
taken before some civil officer having power to commit to the county 
jail, for the purpose of awaiting the action of the Grand Jury. 

" Men must quit blacking themselves, and do everything legally. 

" Oscar J. E. Stuart, 
" Q. M. G. and Col. Com. Militia." 

The objection here seems to be to shooting the freedmen 
"on private acconnt," or doing anything "illegally," thus 
taking the proper work of the militia out of its hands. 

There were no doubt serious apprehensions in the minds of 
the people on the subject of negro insurrections. But a great 
deal that was said about them was mere pretence and cant, 
with which I have not seen fit to load these pages. There 
was not, while I was in the South, the slightest danger from 
a rising of the blacks, nor will there be, unless they are driven 
to desperation by wrongs. 

I remember two very good specimens of formidable negro 
insurrections. One was reported in Northern Mississippi, and 
investigated personally by General Fiske, who took pains to 
visit the spot and learn all the facts concerning it. According 
to his account, " a colored man hunting squirrels was magnified 
into a thousand vicious negroes marching upon their old mas- 
ters with bloody intent." 



876 A RECONSTRUCTED STATE. 

The other case was reported at the hotel in Vicksburg 
where I stopped, by a gentleman Avho had just arrived in the 
steamer " Fashion " from New Orleans. He related an excit- 
ing storj^ of a rising of the blacks in Jefferson Parish, and a 
great slaughter of the white population. He also stated that 
General Sheridan had sent troops to quell the insurrection. 
Afterwards, when at New Orleans, I made inquiry of General 
Sheridan concerning the truth of the rumor, and learned that 
it was utterly without foundation. The most noticeable phase 
of it was the effect it had upon the guests at the hotel table. 
Everybody had been predicting negro insurrections at Christ- 
mas-time ; now everybody's pi'ophecy had come true, and 
everybody was delighted. A good deal of horror was ex- 
pressed ; but the real feeling, ill-concealed under all, was 
exultation. 

" What will Sumner & Co. say now ? " cried one. 

" The only way is to kill the niggers oft', and drive 'em out 
of the country," said another. 

I was struck by the perfect unanimity with which the com- 
pany indorsed this last sentiment. All the outrages committed 
by whites upon blacks were of no account ; but at the mere 
rumor of a negro insurrection, what murderous passions were 
roused ! 

Of the comparative good behavior of whites and blacks in 
a large town, the police reports afford a pretty good indica- 
tion. Vicksburg, which had less than five thousand inhabi- 
tants in 1860, had in 1865 fifteen thousand. Of these, eiirht 
thousand were blacks. On Christmas-day, out of nineteen 
persons brought before the police court for various offences, 
fourteen were white and five colored. The day after there 
were ten cases reported, — nine white persons and one negro. 
The usual proportion of white criminals was more than two 
thirds. 

An unrelenting spirit of persecution, shown towards Union 
men in Mississippi, was fostered by the reconstructed civil 
courts. Union scouts were prosecuted for arson and stealing. 
A horse which had been taken by the gov u*nment, and after- 



A PARDONED REBEL. 377 

wards condemned and sold, was claimed by the original owner, 
and recovered, — the quartermaster's bill of sale, produced in 
court by the purchaser, being pronounced null and void. The 
government had leased to McAlister, a Northern man, an 
abandoned plantation, with the privilege of cutting wood upon 
it, for which he paid forty cents a cord : the Rebel owner re- 
turns with his pardon, and sues the lessee for alleged damages 
done to his property by the removal of wood, to the amount 
of five thousand dollars ; a writ of attachment issues under 
the seal of the local court, and the defendant is compelled to 
give bonds to the amount of ten thousand dollars, or lie in 
jail. Such cases were occurring every day. 

The beautiful effect of executive mercy upon rampant Reb- 
els was well illustrated in Mississippi. A single example will 

suffice. The Reverend Dr. , an eloquent advocate of 

the Confederate cause, — who, as late as March 23d, 1865, 
delivered a speech before the State Legislature, urging the 
South to fight to the last extremity, — under strong pretences 
of loyalty, obtained last summer a full pardon, and an order 

for the restoration of his property. The House, in 

Vicksburg, belonging to this reverend gentleman, was at that 
time used as a hospital for colored persons by the Freedmen's 
Bureau. Returning, with the President's authority, he turned 
out the sick inmates with such haste as to cause the deaths 
of several ; and on the following Sunday preached a vehe- 
ment sermon on reconstruction, in which he avowed himself 
a better friend to the blacks than Northern men, and declared 
that it was " the duty of the government to treat the South 
with magnanimity, because it was not proper for a living ass 
to kick a dead lion." 

There was great opposition to the fi-eedmen's schools. Dr. 
Warren, the superintendent for the State, told me that "if 
the Bureau was withdrawn not a school would be publicly 
allowed." There were combinations formed to prevent the 
leasing of rooms for schools ; and those who would have been 
willing to let buildings for this purpose were deterred from 
doing so by threats of vengeance from their neighbors. In 



378 A KECONSTRUCTED STATE. 

Vicksburg, school-houses had been erected on confiscated land, 
which had lately been restored to the Rebel owners, and from 
which thej were ordered, with other government buildings, to 
be removed. 

In the month of November there were 4750 pupils in the 
freedmen's schools, — the avei'ao-e attendance beino- about 
8000. Of these, 2650 were advanced beyond the alphabet 
and primer ; 1200 were learning arithmetic, and 1000 writing. 

The schools were mainly supported by the Indiana Yearly 
Meeting of Friends, the Ohio Yearly Meeting, the American 
Freedmen's Aid Commission, (composed of various denomina- 
tions,) and the American Missionary Association, (Congrega- 
tional.) Elkanah Beard, of the Indiana Yearly Meeting, was 
the first to organize a colony of colored refugees in Mississippi, 
and through him his society have furnished to the freedmen 
practical relief, in the shape of food, clothing, and shelter, to a 
very great amount. The United Presbyterian Body had fif- 
teen teachers at Vicksburg and Davis's Bend. The Old School 
Presbyterian Church had a missionary at Oxford, introducing 
schools upon plantations, and the Moravian Church had a pio- 
neer at Holly Springs. 



ANXIETY OF THE COTTON PLANTER. 379 



CHAPTER LIII. 

A FEW WORDS ABOUT COTTON. 

The best cotton lands in the States lie between 31° and 36° 
north latitude. Below 31° the climate is too moist, causing the 
plant to run too much to stalk, and the fibre to rot. Above 
36° the season is too short and too cold. The most fertile tracts 
for the cultivation of cotton are the great river bottoms. In 
the Mississippi Valley, twice or even three or four times as 
much may be raised to the acre as in Northern Alabama 
or Middle Tennessee. But in the Valley there is danger 
from floods and the army worm, by which sometimes entire 
crops are swept away. On the uplands there is danger from 
drought. 

The life of the planter is one of care and uncertainty. It 
requires almost as extensive organization to run a large planta- 
tion as a flictory. You never know, until the crop is picked, 
whether you are going to get fifty or five hundred pounds to 
the acre. Anxiety begins at planting-time. The weather may 
be too wet ; it may be too dry ; and the question eagerly asked 
is, "Will you have a stand?" If the "stand" is favorable, 
— that is, if the plants come up well, and get a good start, — 
you still watch the weather, lest they may not have drink 
enouo-h, or the levees, lest they may have too much. Look 
out also for the destructive insects : kindle fires in your fields 
to poison with smoke the moths that lay the eggs ; and scatter 
corn to call the birds, that they may feed upon the newly- 
hatched worms. Perhaps, Avhen the cotton is just ready to 
come out, a storm of rain and wind beats it down into the mud. 
Then, when the crop is harvested, it is liable to be burned ; 
and you must think of your insurance. 

Notwithstanding these disadvantages, there is great fascina- 



380 A FEW WORDS ABOUT COTTON. 

tion in the culture, — the possibihty of clearing in one season 
from a good plantation fifty or a hundred thousand dollars, 
causing you to take cheerfully all risks. The plausible fig- 
ures dazzle you ; and to the Northern man the novelty of the 
life in prospect for a year or two is itself an inducement. 
You think little of the danger to health from the miasmas of 
the swamps ; or to property, from the midnight torch of an 
enemy ; or to life, from the ill-timed recreation of some bush- 
whacking neighbor. And you are quite insensible to what 
the Southern planter deems the greatest of all risks that beset 
your crop, — that some day your freedmen will desert, and 
leave it to destruction. 

I found many Northern planters in the upland districts of 
Alabama and Tennessee, where lands are cheaper, plantations 
smaller, and the risks less, than in the Mississippi Valley. But 
the latter region proved the greater attraction to adventurous 
capital. Men from the Middle States and the great West 
were everywhere, buying and leasing plantations, hiring freed- 
men, and setting thousands of ploughs in motion. 

From experienced cotton-growers I obtained various esti- 
mates of the cost and probable profits of a crop the present 
year. They usually difiered little as to items of expense, but 
sometimes very widely as to profits, according to each man's 
conjectures regarding freedmen's willingness to work, and 
the price of cotton next flill, which one would place as low 
as fifteen cents, and another as high as fifty. The annexed 
statement, furnished by the Southern Land Agency at Vicks- 
burg, is probaljly as good as any : — 

"Sir: — Tlie following is an estimate of the expense and cash 
capital required to cultivate 500 acres of cotton land within the scope 
of our agency, for the year 1866. 

25 mules @ $150 $3,750 

25 single sets plough harness @ $4 100 

3 lumber wagons @ $75 225 

25 single ploughs @ $13 325 

10 double ploughs @ $18 180 

700 bushels cotton-seed @ $1 700 

Total outlay for stock, seed, and knplements $5,280 



ESTIMATE OF COST AND PROFIT. 381 

1200 bushels corn @ S0.75 S900 

120 barrels of corn meal @ $6 (about 1^ lb. per ra- 
tion) 720 

84 barrels pork @ S35 (about f lb. per ration) . 2,940 

250 gallons molasses @ $0.75 (about | gallon per ra- 
tion each) 187 

5 barrels salt @ S3, for stock and hands 15 

Wages of 60 hands for 10 months @ $15 per month- • • 9,000 

Incidentals 1,000 

Total for supplies, wages, and incidentals $14,762 

Rent of 500 acres land @ SIO 5,000 

Total outlay during the season $25,042 

Value of the articles on hand at the end of the year : — 
Amount paid for stock and implements, less \ for usual 

wear 3,435 

Amount paid for cotton-seed, which is replaced from the 

crop 700 $4,135 

Leaving total expenditure during the year $20,907 

For the actual amount of cash required up to the time 
a portion of the crop may be disposed of — say 
Sept. 30th —deduct | of the rent, which is not 

due until the crop is gathered 3,333 

Last quarter's expenditures for supplies, wages, &c. • • • • 4,940 $8,273 

$16,769 

" From which calculation we see that the actual cash capital re- 
quired is $16,769, or about $33 per acre, and the actual expense 
about $42 per acre. But as men's financial abilities differ materially, 
we think it quite possible to cultivate land with smaller capital. 
Many are hiring men, agreeing to pay but a small portion of their 
wages monthly, and the balance at the end of the year ; while others 
save the use of capital by procuring supplies on a short ciedit, or by 
allowing a portion of the crop for rent. 

" The average crop on alluvial land is full one bale per acre ; on 
second bottom or table lands, about § bale, and on uplands i bale. 

"Clothing and extra supplies furnished to hands are usually 
charged against their wages. 

" This calculation is considered by the most experienced cotton- 
growers in the country a fair and liberal estimate ; and from it you 
may estimate the profit on any sized tract, as the difference in the 
amount of land tilled will not materially change the figures. 
" Very respectfully," etc. 



882 A FEW WORDS ABOUT C0TT0:N'. 

Here tlie cost of some articles is placed too low. »Two hun- 
dred dollars each for mules would be nearer the actual price. 
The cotton-seed to be replaced by the crop should also be 
thrown out of the consideration if you expect to close up busi- 
ness at the end of the year, for although seed this season 
brought one dollar and upwards, it has no merchantable value 
in ordinary times. This you will take into account if intend- 
ing to undertake a plantation next year. 

But suppose we call the total expenditure for this year 
twenty-four thousand dollars. And suppose a full crop is pro- 
duced, — five hundred acres yielding an equal number of bales. 
Taking twenty-five cents a pound as a safe estimate, you have 
for each bale (of five hundred pounds) 1125 ; for five hundred 
bales, ^62,500. From this gross amount deduct the total ex- 
penditure, and you have remaining |38,500. If you go to 
the uplands where less cotton is produced, you employ fewer 
hands, and have less rent to pay, — perhaps not more than four 
or five dollars for good land. Should cotton be as low as twenty 
cents, you have still a fair margin for profits ; and should it 
be as high as fifty, as many confidently maintain it will be, 
the resulting figures are sufficiently exciting. 

In 1850 Mississippi produced 484,292 bales, of 400 pounds 
each ; in 1860, more than twice that quantity. The present 
year, notwithstanding the scarcity of labor and the number of 
unprotected and desolated plantations, there is a prospect of 
two thirds of an average croj), — say half a million bales. 
The freedmen are working well ; and cotton is cultivated to 
the neglect of almost everything else. If we have a good 
cotton season, there will be a large yield. If there is a small 
yield, the price Avill be proportionately high. So that in either 
case the crop raised in Mississippi this year bids fair to produce 
forty or fifty miUion dollars. 



THE DAVIS PLANTATIONS. 383 



CHAPTER LIV. 

DAVIS'S BEND. — GRAND GULF. — NATCHEZ. 

Descending the Mississippi, the first point of interest you 
pass is Davis's Bend, the former home of the President of the 
Confederacy. 

A curve of the river encircles a pear-shaped peninsnla 
twentj^-eight miles in circumference, with a cut-off' across the 
neck seven hundred yards in length, converting it into an 
island. There is a story told of a man who, setting out to 
walk on the levee to Natchez, from Mr. Joe Davis's planta- 
tion, which adjoins that of his brother Jeff", unwittingly made 
the circuit of this island, and did not discover his mistake until 
he found himself at night on the spot from which he had 
started in the morning. 

About a mile from the river stands the Jeff* Davis Man- 
sion, with its wide verandas and pleasant shade -trees. The 
plantation comprises a thousand acres of tillable land, now 
used as a Home Farm for colored paupers, under the superin- 
tendence of a sub-commissioner of the Bureau. Here are 
congregated the old, the orphaned, the infirm, and many whose 
energies of body and mind were prematurely worn out under 
the system which the Confederacy was designed to glorify and 
perpetuate. . 

Here you find the incompetent and thriftless. Some have 
little garden-spots, on which they worked last season until 
their vegetables were ripe, when they stopped work and went 
to eating the vegetables. The government cultivates cotton 
with their labor ; and once, at a critical period, it was neces- 
sary to commence ejecting them from their quarters in order 
to compel them to work to keep the grass down. 

The freedmen on the other plantations of the island repre- 



384 DAVIS'S BEND. — GRAND GULF. — NATCHEZ. 

sent other qualities of the race. Besides tlie Home Farm 
there are five thousand acres divided into farms and home- 
steads, cultivated by the negroes on their own account, and 
paying a large rent to the government. On these little farms 
twenty-five hundred bales of cotton were raised last year, be- 
sides large quantities of corn, potatoes, and other produce. 
Many of the tenants liad only their naked hands to begin with : 
they labored with hoes alone the first year, earning money to 
buy mules and ploughs the next. The signal success of the 
colony perhaps indicates the future of free labor in the South, 
and the eventual division of the large plantations into home- 
steads to be sold or rented to small farmers. This system suits 
the freedman better than any other ; and under it he is indus- 
trious, prosperous, and happy. 

There were about three thousand people at the Bend. Some 
worked a few acres, others took large farms, and hired laborers. 
Fifty had accumvilated five thousand dollars each during the 
past two years ; and one hundred others had accumulated 
from one to four thousand dollars. Some of these rising cap- 
italists had engaged Northern men to rent plantations for the 
coming year, and to take them in as partners, — the new black 
code of Mississippi prohibiting the leasing of lands to the freed- 
men. 

The colony is self-governing, under the supervision of the 
sub-commissioner. There are three courts, each having its 
colored judge and sheriff. The offender, before being put on 
trial, can decide whether he will be tried by a jury, or have 
his case heard by the judge alone. Pretty severe sentences 
are sometimes pronounced ; and it is found that the negro will 
take cheerfully twice the punishment from one of his own color 
that he will from a white court. 

Some sound sense often falls from the lips of these black 
Solomons. Here is a sample. A colored man and his mother 
are brought up for stealing a bag of corn. 

Judge : " Do you choose to be tried by a jury ? " 

Culprit (not versed in the technicalities of the court) : 
"What'sdat?" 



A COLOKED COURT. 385 

Judge: "Do you want twelve men to come in and help 
me?" 

Culprit, emphatically : " No, sah ! " — for he thinks one 
man will probably be too much for him. 

Judge, sternly : . " Now listen you ! You and your mother 
are a couple of low-down darkies, trying to get a living with- 
out work. You are the cause that respectable colored people 
are slandered, and called thieving and lazy niggers ; when it 's 
only the likes of you that 's thieving and lazy. Now this is 
what I '11 do with you. If you and your mother will hire out 
to-day, and go to work like honest people, I '11 let you off on 
good behavior. If you won't, I '11 send you to Captain Nor- 
ton. That means, you '11 go up with a sentence. And I '11 
tell you what your sentence will be : three months' hard labor 
on the Home Farm, and the ball and chain in case you attempt 
to run away. Now which will you do ? " 

Culprit, eagerly : " I '11 hire out, sah ! " And a contract is 
made for him and his mother on the spot. 

The next point of interest is Grand Gulf; the only place 
that offered any resistance to our gunboats between Vicksburg 
and Port Hudson. It had before the war a thousand inhabi- 
tants, three churches, and several steam-mills. Water and fire 
appear to have conspired against it. The Yankees burned 
every vestige of the village, and the river has torn away a 
laro-e section of the bank on which it stood. A number of 
cheap whitewashed wooden buildings have taken its place on 
the shore ; above and behind which rises a steep rocky bluff, 
covered with sparse timber, sedge, and cane-brakes, and crowned 
by Rebel batteries. 

There was formerly an extensi^'e whirlpool below the con- 
fluence of the Big Black with the ]\Iississippi, Avhicli had worn 
a gulf six hundred feet deep, just above this place : hence its 
name. Grand Gulf. This immense chasm has been filled, since 
the beginning of the war, by the river that excavated it ; and 
where the whirlpool was there is now a solid sand-bar over- 
grown with cotton-wood bushes. Opposite the town, on the 
Louisiana side, there is another sand-bar, bare and low, occu- 

25 



886 DAVIS'S BEND. — GRAND GULF. —NATCHEZ. 

p}dng tlie place of a fine plantation that flourished there before 
the war. 

A hundred and twenty miles below Vicksbnrg is Natcliez, 
one of the most romanticallv and beautifully situated cities in 
the United States. It is built on an almost i)recipitous bluff, 
one hundred and fifty feet above the river, which is overlooked 
by a delightful park and promenade along the city front. The 
landing is vmder the bluff. 

The " Quitman " (in which I had taken passage) stopped 
several hours at Natchez getting on board a quantity of cot- 
ton. Above Vicksbnrg, I noticed that nearly all the cotton 
was going northward : below, it was going the other way, 
toward Ne^v Orleans. At every town, and at nearly every 
plantation landing, we took on board, sometimes a hundred 
bales and more, sometimes but two or three, until the '' Quit- 
man " showed two high white walls of cotton all round her 
guards, which were sunk to the water's edge. She was con- 
structed to carry forty-three hundred bales. 

On the levee at Natchez I made the acquaintance of an 
old plantation overseer. He knew all about cotton raising. 
" I 've overseed in the swamps, and I 've overseed on the 
hills. You can make a bale to the acre in the swamps, and 
about one bale to two acres on the hills. I used to get tei^ to 
fifteen hundred dollars a year. 1 'm hiring now to a Northern 
man, who gives me three thousand. A Northern man will 
want to get more out of the niggers than Ave do. Mine said 
to me last night, ' I want you to get the last drop of sweat and 
the last pound of cotton out of my niggers ; ' and I shall do it. 
I can if anybody can. There 's a heap in humbuggin' a nig- 
o-er. I worked a gang this summer, and got as much work 
out of 'em as I ever did. I just had my leading nigger, and 
I says to him, I says, ' Sam, I want this yer crop out by such 
a time ; now you go a-head, talk to the niggers, and lead 'em 
off rifdit smart, and I '11 give you twenty-five dollars.' Then 
I o-ot up a race, and give a few dollars to the men that picked 
the most cotton, till I found out the extent of what each man 
could pick ; then I required that of him every day, or I docked 
his wa^es." 



THE GERMANS AND NEGROES. 387 

As we were talking, the mate of the " Quitman " took up an 
oyster-sliell and threw it at the head of one of the deck-hands, 
who did not handle the cotton to suit him. It did not hurt 
the negro's head much, but it hurt his feelings. 

" Out on the plantations," observed my friend the overseer, 
*' it would cost him fifty dollars to hit a nigger that way. It 
cost me a hundred and fifty dollars just for knocking down 
three niggers lately, — fifty dollars a piece, by ! " 

He thought the negroes were going to be ci'owded out by 
the Germans ; and went on to say, "vvith true Southern con- 
sistency, — 

" The Germans want twenty dollars a month, and we can 
hire the niggers for ten and fifteen. The Germans will die in 
our swamps. Then as soon as they get money enough to buy 
a cart and mule, and an acre of land somewhar, whar they 
can plant a grape-vine, they '11 go in for themselves." 



388 THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI. 



CHAPTER LV. 

THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI. 

We were nearly all night at Natchez loading cotton. The 
next day, I noticed that the men worked languidly, and that 
the mate was plying them Avith whiskey. I took an oppor- 
tunity to talk with him about them. He said, — 

" We have a hundred and eighty hands aboard, all told. 
Thar 's sixty deck-hands. That a'n't enough. We ought to 
have reliefs, when Ave 're shipping freight day and night as we 
are now." 

I remarked : " A gentleman who came up to Vicksburg in 
the ' Fashion,' stated, as an excuse for the long trip she made, 
that the niffo-ers would n't work, — that the mates could n't 
make them work." 

He replied : " I reckon the hands on board the ' Fasliion ' 
are about in the condition these are. These men are used up. 
They ha'n't had no sleep for four days and nights. I 've seen 
a man go to sleep many a time, standing up, with a box on his 
shoulder. We pay sixty dollars a month, — more 'n almost 
any other boat, the work is so hard. But we get rid of pay- 
ing a heap of 'em. When a man gets so used up he can't 
stand no more, he quits. He don't dare to ask for wages, for 
he knows he '11 get none, without he sticks by to the end of 
the trip." 

While we were talking, a young fellow, not more than 
twenty years old, came up, looking very much exhausted, and . 
told the mate he was sick. 

"Ye a'n't sick neither! " roared the mate at him, fiercely. 
" You 're lazy ! If you won't work, go ashore." 

The fellow limped away again, and went ashore at the next 
landinn;. 



TOILSOME WORK AND BRUTAL TREATMENT. 389 

" Is he sick or lazy ? " I asked. 

" Neither. He 's used up. He was as smart a liand as I 
had when he came aboard. But they can't stand it." 

" Was it always so ? " • 

" No ; before the war we had men trained for this work. 
We had some niggers, but more white men. We could n't 
sit all the nigo-ers we wanted ; a fifteen hundred dollar man 
wore out too qviick." 

" The whites were the best, I suppose." 

" The niggers Avas the best. They was more active getting 
down bales. They liked the fun. They stand it better than 
white men. Business stopped, and that set of hands all 
dropped off, — went into the war, the most of 'em. Now we 
have to take raw hands. These are all plantation niggers. 
Not one of 'm '11 ship for another trip ; they 've had enough 
of it. Thar 's no compellin' 'em. You can't hit a nigger 

now, but these d d Yankee sons of b s have you up 

and make you pay for it." 

I told him if that was the case, I did n't think I should hit 
one. 

" They 've never had me up," he resumed. " When I 
tackle a nicro-er, it '11 be whar thar an't no witnesses, and it '11 
be the last of him. That 's what ought to be done with 'em, 
— kill 'em all off. I like a nigger in his place, and that 's a 
servant, if thar 's any truth In the Bible." 

This allusion to Scripture, from lips hot with words of wrath 
and wrong, was especially edifying. 

The " Quitman " was a fine boat, and passengers, if not 
deck-hands, fared sumptuously on board of her. The table 
was equal to that of the best hotels. An excellent quality of 
claret wine was furnished, as a part of the regular dinner fare, 
after the French fashion, which appears to have been intro- 
duced into this country by the Creoles, and which is to be met 
with, I believe, only on the steamboats of the Lower INIississippi. 

On the " Quitman," as on the boat from Memphis to Vicks- 
burg, I made the acquaintance of all sorts of Southern people. 
The conversation of some of them is worth recording. 



390 THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI. 

One, a ]\lississlppi planter, learning that I was a Nortliei*n 
man, took me aside, and with much emotion, asked if I thought 
there was " any chance of the government paying us for our 
niggers.'" 

" What niggers ? " 

" The niggers you've set free by this abolition war." 

" This abolition war you brought upon yourselves ; and 
paying you for your slaves would be like paying a burglar for 
a pistol lost on your premises. No, my friend, believe me, 
you Avill never get the first cent, as long as this government 
lasts." 

He looked deeply anxious. But he still cherished a hope. 

" I 've been told by a heap of our people that we shall get our 

pay. Some are talking about buying nigger claims. They 

expect, when om' representatives get into Congress, there '11 

*be an appropriation made." 

He went on : "• I did one mighty bad thing. To save my 
niggers, I run 'em off into Texas. It cost me a heap of 
money. I came back without a dollar, and found the Yankees 
had taken all my stock, and everything, and my niggers was 
free, after all. ' 

Jim B , from Warren County, ten miles from Vicksburg, 

was a Mississippi planter of a different type, — jovial, gener- 
ous, extravagant in his speech, and, in his habits of living, fiist. 
" My niggers are all wdth me yet, and you can't get 'em to 
leave me. The other day my boy Dan drove me into town ; 
when we got thar, I says to him, ' Dan, ye want any money? ' 
' Yes, master, I 'd like a little ? ' I took out a ten-dollar bill 
and give him. Another nigger says to him, ' Dan, what did 
that man give you money for?' 'That man?' says Dan; 
' I belongs to him.' ' No, you don't belong to nobody noAV ; 
you 're free.' ' Well,' says Dan, ' he provides for me, and gives 
me money, and he 's my master, any way.' I give my boys 
a heap more money than I should if I just hired 'em. We go 
right on like we always did, and I pole 'em if they don't do 
right. This year I says to 'em, ' Boys, I 'm going to make a 
bargain with you. I '11 roll out the ploughs and the mules and 



AN ARKANSAS PLANTER. 391 

the feed, and yoii shall do the work ; we '11 make a crop of 
cotton, and you shall have half. I '11 provide for ye, give ye 
quarters, treat ye well, and when ye won't work, pole ye like 
I always have. They agreed to it, and I put it into the con- 
tract that I was to whoop 'em when I pleased." 

Jim was very enthusiastic about a girl that belonged to him. 
" She's a perfect mountain-spout of a woman ! " (if anybody 
knows Avhat that is.) " When the Yankees took me prisoner, 
she froze to a trunk of mine, and got it. out of the way with 
fifty thousand dollars Confederate money in it." 

He never wearied of praising her fine qualities. " She 's 
black outside, but she 's white inside, shore ! " And he spoke 
of a son of hers, then twelve years okl, with an interest and 
affection which led me to inquire about the child's father. 
" Well," said Jim, with a smile, " he 's a perfect little image 
of me, only a shade blacker." 

An Arkansas planter said : " I 've a large plantation near 
Pine Bluft*. I furnish everything but clothes, and give my 
freedmen one third of the crop they make. On twenty plan- 
tations around me, there are ten different styles of contracts. 
Niggers are working well ; but you can't get only about two 
thirds as much out of 'em now as you could when they were 
slaves " (which I suppose is about all that ought to be got out 
of tliem). " The nigger is fated : he can't live with the white 
race, now he 's free. I don't know one I 'd trust with fifty 
dollars, or to manage a crop and control the proceeds. It will 
be generations before we can feel friendly towards the North- 
ern people." 

I remarked : " I have travelled months in the South, and 
expressed my sentiments freely, and met with better treatment 
than I could have expected five years ago." 

" That 's true ; if you had expressed abolition sentiments 
then, you 'd have woke up some morning and found yourself 
hanging from some limb." 

Of the war he said : " Slavery was really what we "were 
fighting for, although the leaders didn't talk that to the people. 
They saw the slave interest was losing ])ower in the Union, 
and trying to straighten it up, they tipped it over." 



892 THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI. 

A Louisiana planter, fi-om Lake Providence, — and a very 
intelligent, well-bred gentleman, — said : " Negroes do best 
when they have a share of the crop ; the idea of working 
for themselves stimulates them. Planters are afraid to trust 
them to manage ; but it 's a great mistake. I know an old 
negro who, with three children, made twenty-five bales of cot- 
ton this vear on abandoned land. Another, with two women 
and a blintl mule, made twenty-seven bales. A gang of fifty 
made three hundred bales, — all without any advice or assist- 
ance from white men. I was always in favor of educating 
and elevating the black race. The laws Avere against it, but 
I taught all my slaves to read the Bible. Each race has its 
peculiarities : the negro has his, and it remains to be seen 
what can be done with him. Men talk about his stealing : no 
doubt he 'II steal : but circumstances have cultivated that habit. 
Some of my neighbors couldn't have a pig, but their niggers 
would steal it. But mine never stole from me, because they 
had enough without stealing. Giving them the elective fran- 
chise just now is absurd ; but when they are prepared for it, 
and they Avill be some day, I shall advocate it." 

Another Louisianian, agent of the Hope Estate, near Wa- 
ter-Proof, in Tensas Parish, said : " I manage five thousand 
acres, — fourteen hundred under cultivation. I always fed my 
nirro-ers well, and rarely found one that would steal. My 
neio-hbors' niggers, half-fed, hard-worked, they 'd steal, and 
I never blamed 'em. Nearly all mine stay with me. They 've 
done about two thirds .the work this year they used to, for 
one seventh of the crops. Heap of niggers around me have 
never received anything ; they 're only just beginning to learn 
that they 're free. Many planters keep stores for niggers, and 
sell 'em flour, prints, jewelry and trinkets, and charge two or 
three prices for everything. I think God intended the niggers 
to be slaves ; we have the Bible for that : " always the Bible. 
" Now since man has deranged God's plan, I think the best Ave 
can do is to keep 'em as near a state of bondage as possible. 
I don't believe in educating 'em." 

"Why not?" 



TALK WITH THE DECK PASSENGERS. 393 

" One reason, schooling would enable them to compete with 
white mechanics." 
"And wliy not?" 

" It would be a disadvantage to the whites," he replied, — • 
as if that was the only thing to be considered by men with the 
Bible in their mouths ! "In Mississippi, opposite Water-Proof, 
there 's a minister collecting money to buy plantations in a 
white man's name, to be divided in little farms of ten and fif- 
teen acres for the niggers. He could n't do that thing in my 
parish : he 'd soon be dangling from some tree. There is n't 
a freedman taught in our parish ; not a school ; it would n't 
be allowed." 

He admitted that the war was brought on by the Southern 
leaders, but thought the North " ought to be lenient and give 
them all their rights." Adding : " What we want chiefly is 
to legislate for the freedmen. Another thing : the Confeder- 
ate debt ought to be assumed by the government. We shall 
try hard for that. If we can't get it, if the North continues 
to treat us as a subjugated people, the thing will have to be 
tried over again," — meaning the war. " We must be left to 
manao-e the nisr'^er. He can 't be made to work without force." 
(He had just said his niggers did two thirds as much work as 
formerly.) " My theory is, feed 'em well, clothe 'em well, 
and then, if they won't work, d — n 'em, whip 'em well ! " 

I did not neglect the deck-passengers. These were all ne- 
groes, except a family of white refugees from Arkansas, Avho 
had been burnt out twice during the war, once near Little 
Rock, and again in Tennessee, near Memphis. With the little 
remnant of their possessions they were now going to seek 
their fortunes elsewhere, — ill-clad, starved-looking, sleeping 
on deck in the rain, coiled around the smoke-pipe, and covered 
with ragged bedclothes. 

The talk of the negroes was always entertaining. Here is 
a sample, from the lips of a stout old black woman : — 

" De best ting de Yankees done was to break de slavery 
chain. I should n't be here to-day if dey had n't. I 'm going 
to see my mother." 



394 THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI. 

" Your mother must be very old." 

" You may know she 's dat, for I 'm one of her baby chirn, 
and I 's got 'leven of my own. I 've a heap better time now 
'n I had wlien I was in bondage. I had to nus' my chil'n 
four times a day and pick two hundred pounds cotton besides. 
My third husband went off to de Yankees. ]\Iy first was sold 
away from me. Now I have my second husband again ; I 
was sold away from him, but I found him f^gain, after I 'd 
lived with my third husband thirteen years." 

I asked if he was willing to take her back. 

" He was willing to have me again on any terms,''^ — em- 
phatically — " for he knowed I was Number One ! " 

Several native French inhabitants took passage at various 
points along the river, below the Mississippi line. All spoke 
very good French, and a few conversed well in English. One, 
from Point Coup(^e Parish, said : " Before the war, tliere were 
over seventeen thousand inhabitants in our parish." (In Lou- 
isiana a county is called a parish.) " Nearly thirteen thou- 
sand were slaves. Many of the free inhabitants were colored ; 
so that there were about four colored persons to one white. 
We made yearly between eight and nine thousand hogsheads 
of sugar, and fifteen hundred bales of cotton. The war has 
left us only three thousand inhabitants. We sent fifteen hun- 
dred men into the Confederate army. All the French popu- 
lation were in favor of secession. The white inhabitants of 
these parishes are mostly French Creoles. We treated our slaves 
better than the Americans treated theirs. We did n't work 
them so hard ; and there was more familiarity and kindly feel- 
ino; between us and our servants. The children were raised 
together ; and a white child learned the negroes' patois before 
he learned French. The patois is curious : a negro says ' Moi 
pas connais^ for ^ Je ne sais 2)as'' (I do not know) ; and they 
use a great many African words which you would not under- 
stand. Our slaves were never sold except to settle an estate. 
Besides tliese two classes there was a third, quite separate, 
■which did not associate with either of the others. They were 
the free colored, of- French- African descent, some almost or 



THE LEVEES. 395 

quite white, witli many large projicrty holders and slave-own- 
ers among them ; a very respectable class, forming a society of 
their own." 

The villages and plantation dwellings along here, with their 
low roofs and sunny verandas, on the level river bank, had a 
peculiarly foreign and tropical a})pearance. 

The levees of Louisiana form a much more extensive and 
complete system than those of Mississippi. In the latter State 
there is much hilly land that does not need their protection, 
and much swamp land not worth protecting ; and there is, I 
believe, no law regarding them. In the low and level State 
of Louisiana, however, a large and fertile part of which lies 
considerably below the level of high water, there is very strict 
legislation on the subject, compelling every land-owner on the 
river to keep up his levees. This year the State itself had 
undertaken to repair them, issuing eight per cent, bonds to the 
amount of a million dollars for the purpose, — the expense of 
the work to be defrayed eventually by the planters. 

For a long distance the Lower Mississippi, at high water, 
appears to be flowing upon a ridge. The river has built up its 
own banks higher than the country which lies back of them ; 
and the levees have raised them still higher. Behind this fer- 
tile strip there are extensive swamps, containing a soil of un- 
surpassed depth and richness, but unavailable for want of drain- 
age. Thi'ee methods are proposed for bringing them under 
cultivation. First, to surround them by levees, ditch them, 
and pump the water out by steam. Second, to cut a canal 
through them to the Gulf. Third, to turn the Mississippi into 
them, and fill them with its alluvial deposit. This last method 
is no doubt the one Nature intended to employ ; and it is the 
opinion of many that man, confining the flow of the stream 
within artificial limits, attempted the settlement of this country 
several centuries too soon. 

A remarkable feature of Louisiana scenery is its forests of 
cypress-trees growing out of the water, heavy, sombre, and 
shaggy with moss. 

The complexion of the river water is a light mud-color, 



396 THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI. 

which it derives from the turbid INIissouri, — the Upper Mis- 
sissippi being a clear stream. Pour off a glass of it after it 
has been standing a short time, and a sediment of dark mud 
appears at the bottom. Notwithstanding this unpleasant pecul- 
iarity, it is used altogether for cooking and drinking purposes 
on board the steamboats, and I found New Orleans supplied 
with it. 

A curious flict has been suggested with regard to this won- 
derful river, — that it runs up hill. Its mouth is said to be 
two and a half miles higher — or flxrther from the earth's cen- 
tre — than its source. When we consider that the earth is a 
spheroid, with an axis shorter by twenty-six miles than its equa- 
torial diameter ; and that the same centrifugal motion which 
has caused the equatorial protuberance tends still to heap up 
the Avaters of the globe where that motion is greatest; the 
seeming impossibility appears possible, — just as we see a re- 
volvino; grindstone send the water on its surface to the rim. 
Stop the grindstone, and the water flows down its sides. Stop 
the earth's revolution, and immediately you will see the Mis- 
sissippi River turn and flow the other Way. 

Some years ago I made a voyage of several days on the 
Upper Mississippi, to the head of navigation. It was difficult 
to realize that this was the same stream on which I was 
now sailing day after day in an opposite direction, — six days 
in all, from ]\Iemphis to New Orleans. From St. Anthony's 
Falls to the Gulf, the Mississippi is navigable twenty-two hun- 
dred miles. Its entire length is three thousand miles. Its 
great tributary, the Missouri, is alone three thousand miles in 
leno-th : measured from its head-waters to the Gulf, it is four 
thousand five hundred miles. Consider also the Ohio, the 
Arkansas, the Red River, and the hundred lesser streams that 
fall into it, and well may we call it by its Indian name, Michi- 
Sepe, the Father of Waters. 



FRENCH QUARTER. — NAVIES OF STREETS. 397 



CHAPTER LVI. 

THE CRESCENT CITY. 

On the morning of January 1st, 1866, I arrived at New 
Orleans. 

It was midwinter ; but the mild sunny weather that followed 
the first chill days of rain, made me fancy it jNIay. The gar- 
dens of the city were verdant with tropical plants. White 
roses in full bloom climbed upon trellises or the verandas of 
houses. Oleander trees, bananas with their broad droopmg 
leaves six feet long, and Japan plums that ripen in February, 
grew side by side in the open air. There were orange-trees 
whose golden fruit could be picked from the balconies which 
they half concealed. Magnolias, gray-oaks and live-oaks, 
some heavily hung with moss that swung in the breeze like 
waving hair, shaded the yards and streets. I found the road- 
sides of the suburbs green with grass, and the vegetable gar- 
dens checkered and striped with delicately contrasting rows of 
lettuce, cabbages, carrots, beets, onions, and peas in blossom. 

The French quarter of the city impresses you as a foreign 
town transplanted to the banks of the Mississippi. Many of 
the houses are very ancient, Avith low, moss-covered roofs pro- 
jecting over the first story, like slouched hat-brims over quaint 
old faces. The more modern houses are often very elegant, 
and not less picturesque. The names of the streets are Pagan, 
foreign, and strange. The gods and muses of mythology, the 
saints of the Church, the Christian virtues, and modern heroes, 
are all here. You have streets of " Good Children," of " Piety," 
of " Apollo," of " St. Paul," of " Euterpe," and all tlieir rela- 
tions. The shop-signs are in French, or in French and English. 
The people you meet have a foreign air and speak a foreign 
tongue. Their complexions range through all hues, from the 



398 THE CRESCENT CITY. 

dark Creole to the ebon African. The anomalous third class 
of Louisiana — the respectable free colored people of French- 
African descent — are largely represented. Dressed in silks, 
accompanied by their servants, and speaking good French, — 
for many of them are well educated, — the ladies and children 
of this class enter the street cars, which they enliven with the 
Parisian vivacity of their conversation. 

The mingling of foreign and American elements has given 
to New Orleans a great variety of styles of architecture ; and 
the whole city has a light, picturesque, and agreeable appear- 
ance. It is built upon an almost level strip of land bordering 
upon the left bank of the river, and falling back from the levee 
with an imperceptible slope to the cypress and alligator swamps 
in the rear. The houses have no cellars. I noticed that the 
surface drainage of the city flowed hack from the river into 
the Bayou St. John, a navigable inlet of Lake Ponchartrain. 
The old city front lay upon a curve of the Mississippi, which 
gave it a crescent shape : hence its poetic soubriquet. The 
modern city has a river front seven miles in extent, bent like 
the letter S. 

The broad levee, lined with wharves on one side and belted 
by busy streets on the other, crowded with merchandise, and 
thronged with merchants, boatmen, and laborers, presents al- 
ways a lively and entertaining spectacle. Steam and sailing 
crafts of every description, arriving, departing, loading, unload- 
ing, and fringing the city with their long array of smoke-pipes 
and masts, give you some idea of the commerce of New Or- 
leans. 

Here is the great cotton market of the world. In looking 
over the cotton statistics of the past thirty years, I found that 
nearly one half the crop of the United States had passed 
through this port. In 1855-1856 (the mercantile cotton year 
beginning September 1st and ending August 31st) 1,795,023 
bales were shipped from New Orleans, — 986,622 to Great 
Britain (chiefly to Liverpool) ; 244,814 to France (chiefly to 
Havre) ; 162,657 to the North of Europe ; 178,812 to the 
South of Europe, Mexico, &c. ; and 222,100 coastwise,— 



COTTON STATISTICS. — THE ST. CHARLES. 399 

151,469 goincr to Boston and 51,340 to New York. In 1859- 
1860, 2,214,296 bales were exported, 1,420,96(3 to Great Brit- 
ain, 313,291 to France, and 208,634 coastwise, — 131,048 
going to Boston, 02,936 to New York, and 5,717 to Provi- 
dence. This, it will be remembered, was the gi'cat cotton 
year, the crop amounting to near 5,000,000 bales. 

One is interested to learn how much cotton loft this j)ort 
during the war. In 1860-1861, 1,915,852 bales were shipped, 
nearly all before hostilities began ; in 1861-1802, 27,627 bales ; 
in 1862-1803, 23,750; in 1803-1804, 128,130; in 1804- 
1805, 192,351. The total receipts during this last year were 
271,015 bales. From September 1st, 1805, to January 1st, 
1800, the receipts were 375,000 bales ; and cotton was still 
coming. The warehouses on the lower tributaries of the Mis- 
sissippi were said to be full of it, waiting for high water to 
send it down. There had been far more concealed in the 
country than was supposed : it made its appearance where least 
looked for ; and such was the supply that experienced traders 
believed that prices would thenceforth be steadily on the de- 
cline. 

A first-class Liverpool steamer is calculated to take out 3000 
600-pound bales, the freight on which is 7-8ths of a penny 
per pound, — not quite two cents. The freight to New York 
and Boston is 1 l-4tli cents by steamers, and 7-8ths of a cent 
by sailing-vessels. 

I put up at the St. Charles, famous before the war as a hotel, 
and during the Avar as the head-quarters of General Butler. 
It is a conspicuous edifice, with white-pillared porticos, and a 
spacious Rotunda, thronged nightly with a crowd which strikes 
a stranger with astonishment. It is a sort of social evening 
exchange, where merchants, planters, travellers, river-men, 
army men, (principall}^ Rebels,) manufacturing and jobbing 
agents, showmen, overseers, idlers, sharpers, gamblers, foreign- 
ers, Yankees, Southern men, the well dressed and the prosper- 
ous, the rough and the seedy, congregate together, some lean- 
ing against the pillars, and a few sitting about the stoves, which 
are almost hidden from sight by the concourse of people stand- 



400 THE CRESCENT CITY. 

ing or moving about in the great central space. Numbers of 
citizens regularly spend their evenings here, as at a club-room. 
One, an old plantation overseer of the better class, told me 
that for years he had not missed going to the Rotunda a single 
night, except when absent from the city. The character he 
gave the crowd was not complimentary. 

" They are all trying to get money without earning it. Each 
is doing his best to shave the rest. If they ever make any- 
thing, I don't know it. I 've been here two thousand nights, 
and never made a cent yet." 

I inquired wliat brouglit him here. 

"For company; to kill time. I never was married, and 
never had a home. When I was young, the girls said I smelt 
like a wet dog ; that 's because I was poor. Since I 've got 
rich, I 'm too old to get married." 

What he was thinking of now Avas a fortune to be made out 
of labor-saving machinery to be used on the plantations : " I 
wish I could get hold of a half-crazy feller, to fix up a cotton 
planter, cotton-picker, cane-cutter, and a thing to hill up 
some." 

He talked cynically of the planters. " They 're a help- 
less set. They 're all confused. They don't know what 
they 're going to do. They never did know much else but to 
get drunk. If a man has a plantation to rent or sell, he can 't 
tell anything about it ; you can't get any proposition out of 
him." 

He complained that Northern capital lodged in the cotton 
belt ; but little of it getting through to the sugar country. He 
did not know any lands let to Northern men. " They hav'n't 
got sugar on the brain ; it 's cotton they 're all crazy after." 

He used to oversee for fifteen hundred dollars a year : he 
was now offered five thousand. He was a well-dressed, rather 
intelligent, capable man ; and I noticed that the planters treated 
him with respect. But his manner toward them was cool and 
independent : he could not forget old times. " I never was 
thought anything of by tliese men, till I got rich. Then they 
began to say ' Dick P is a mighty clever feller ; ' and by- 



OVERSEERS. - GEN. SHERIDAN. 401 

and-by it got to be ' Mr. P .' Now they all come to me, 

because I know about business, and they don't know a thing." 

Like everybody else, he had much to say of the niggers. 
"A heap of the planters wants 'cm all killed off. But I be- 
lieve in the nigger. He '11 work, if they '11 only let him alone. 
They fool him, and tell him such lies, he 's no confidence. 
I 've worked free niggers and white men, and always found the 
niggers worked the best. But no nigger, nor anybody else, 
will work like a slave works with the whip behind him. You 
can't make 'em. 1 was brought up to work alongside o' nig- 
gers, and soon as I got out of it, nothing, no money, could 
induce me to work so again." 

Speaking of other overseers, he said : " I admit I was about 
as tight on the nicrccer as a man ouo-ht to be. If I 'd been a 
slave, I should n't have wanted to work under a master that 
was tighter than I was. But I wa'n't a priming to some. 
You see that red-faced feller with his right hand behind him, 
talkino; with two men ? He 's an overseer. I know of his 
killino- two nio-ffers, and torturins; another so that he died in a 
few days." (I omit the shocking details of the punishment 
said to have been applied.) " The other night he came here 
to kill me because I told about him. He pulled out his pistol, 

and says he, ' Dick P , did you tell so-and-so I killed 

three niggers on Clark's plantation ? ' ' Yes,' I says, ' I said 
so, and can prove it ; and if there 's any shooting to be done, 
I can shoot as fast as you can.' After that he bullied around 
here some, then went off, and I hav'n't heard anything about 
shootino; since." 

Among the earliest acquaintances I made at New Orleans 
was General Phil. Sheridan, perhaps the most brilHant and 
popular fighting man of the war. I found him in command 
of the ]\Iilitary Division of the Gulf, comprising the States of 
Louisiana, Texas, and Florida. In Florida he had at that time 
seven thousand troops ; in Louisiana, nine thousand ; and in 
Texas, twenty thousand, embracing ten thousand colored 
troops at Corpus Christi and on the Rio Grande, watching 
the French movements. 

26 



402 THE CRESCENT CITY. 

It was Sheridan's opinion that the RebelHon would never 
be ended until Maximilian was driven from Mexico. Such a 
government on our borders cherished the seeds of ambition 
and discontent in the minds of the late Confederates. Many 
were emigratino- to Mexico, and there was danger of their 
uniting either with the Liberals or the Imperialists, and form- 
ing a government inimical to the United States. To prevent 
such a possibility, he had used military and diplomatic strat- 
egy. Three thousand Rebels having collected in Monterey, 
he induced the Liberals to arrest and disarm them. Then in 
order that they should not be received by the Imperialists, 
he made hostile demonstrations, sending a pontoon train to 
Brownsville, and six thousand cavalry to San Antonio, estab- 
lishing military posts, and making extensive inquiries for 
forage. Under such circumstances, Maximilian did not feel 
inclined to welcome the Rebel refugees. It is even probable 
that, had our government at that time required the with- 
drawal of the French from Mexico, the demand, emphasized 
by these and similar demonstrations, would have been com- 
plied with. Maximilian is very weak in his position. Nine- 
teen twentieths of the people are opposed to him. There is 
no regular, legitimate taxation for the support of his govern- 
ment, but he levies contributions upon merchants for a small 
part of the funds he requires, and draws upon France for the 
rest. His " government " consists merely of an armed occu- 
pation of the country; with long lines of communication be- 
tween military posts, which could be easily cut off and captured 
one after another by a comparatively small force. 

The Southern country, in the General's opinion, was fast 
becoming " Northernized." It was very poor, and going to 
be poorer. The planters had no enterprise, no recuperative 
energy : they were entirely dependent upon Northern capital 
and Northern spirit,. He thought the freedmen's affairs re- 
quired no legislation, but that the State should leave them to 
be regulated by the natural la)v of supply and demand. 

Phil. Sheridan is a man of small stature,- compactly and 
somewhat massively built, with great toughness of constitu- 



DEEDS AND PROFESSIONS. 403 

tional fibre, and an alert countenance, expressive of remark- 
able energy and force. I inquired if he experienced no reaction 
after the long strain upon his mental and bodily powers occa- 
sioned by the war. 

" Only a pleasant one," he replied. " During my Western 
campaigns, when I was continually in the saddle, I weighed 
but a hundred and fifteen pounds. My flesh was hard as iron. 
Now my weight is a hundred and forty-five." 

He went over with me to the City Hall, to which the 
Executive department of the State had been removed, and 
introduced me to Governor Wells, a plain, elderly man, affa- 
ble, and loyal in his speech. I remember his saying that the 
action of the President, in pardoning Governor Humphreys, 
of Mississippi, after he had been elected by the people on 
account of his services in the Confederate cause, was doing 
great harm throughout the South, encouraging Rebels and 
discouraging Union men. " Everything is being conceded to 
traitors," said he, " before they have been made to feel the 
Federal power." He spobe of the strong Rebel element in 
the Legislature which he was combating ; and gave me copies 
of two veto messages which he had returned to it with bills 
that were passed for the especial benefit of traitors. The new 
serf code, similar to that of Mississippi, engineered through 
the Legislature by a member of the late Confederate Congress, 
he had also disapproved. After this, I was surprised to hear 
from other sources how faithfully he had been carrying out 
the very policy which he professed to condemn, — even going 
beyond the President, in removing from office Union men ap- 
pointed by Governor Hahn and appointing Secessionists and 
Rebels in their place ; and advocating the Southern doc- 
trine that the Government must pay for the slaves it had 
emancipated. Such discrepancies between deeds and pro- 
fessions require no comment. Governor Wells is not the 
only one, nor the highest, among public officers, who, wishing 
to reconcile the irreconcilable, and to stand well before the 
country whilst they were strengthening the hands and gaining 
the favor of its enemies, have suffered their loyal protestations 
to be put to some confusion by acts of doubtful patriotism. 



404 THE CRESCENT CITY. 

At tlie Governor's room I had the good fortune to meet the 
Mayor of the citj, Mr. Hugh Kennedy, Avhom I afterwards 
called upon by appointment. By birth a Scotclnnan, he had 
been thirty years a citizen of New Orleans, and, from the 
beginning of the Secession troubles, had shown himself a 
stanch patnot. He Avas appointed to the mayoralty by Presi- 
dent Lincoln ; General Banks removed him, but he was after- 
wards reinstated. 

I found him an almost enthusiastic believer in the future 
greatness of New Orleans. " It is certain," . he said, " to 
double its population in ten years. Its prosperity dates from 
the day of the abolition of slavery. Men who formerly lived 
upon the proceeds of slave-labor are now stimulated to enter- 
prise. A dozen industrial occupations will spring up where" 
there was one before. Manufactures are already taking a 
start. We have two new cotton-mills just gone into opera- 
tion. The effect upon the whole country will be similar. 
Formerly planters went or sent to New York and Boston and 
laid in their supplies ; for this reason there were no villages in 
the South. But now that men work for wages, which they 
will wish to spend near home, villages will everywhere spring 

Living, in New Orleans, he said, was very cheap. The 
fertile soil produces, wdth little labor, an abundance of vegeta- 
bles the year round. Cattle are brought from the extensive 
prairies of the State, and from the vast pastures of Texas : 
and contractors had engaged to supply the charitable institu- 
tions of the city with the rumps and rounds of beef at six 
cents a pound. 

The street railroads promised to yield a considerable reve- 
nue to the city. The original company paid only $130,000 
for the privilege of laying down its rails, and an exclusive 
rio-ht to the track for twenty-five years. But tw^o new roads 
had been started, one of which had stipulated "to pay to the 
city government eleven and a half per cent, of its gross pro- 
ceeds, and the other twenty-two and a half per cent. " In 
two or three years an annual income from that source will not 
be less than 1200,000." 



A BLACK AKD WHITE STRIKE. 405 

From Mi\ Kennedy I leai'ned that free people of color 
owned property in New Orleans to the amount of $15,000,000. 

He was delighted with the working of the frec-lahor system. 
" I thought it an indication of progress when the white labor- 
ers and negroes on the levees the other day made a strike for 
higher wages. They were receiving two dollars and a half and 
three dollars a day, and they struck for five and seven dollars. 
They marched up the levee in a long procession, white and 
black together. I gave orders that they should not be inter- 
fered with as long as they interfered with nobody else ; but 
when they undertook by force to prevent other laborers from 
working, the police promptly put a stop to their proceedings." 



406 POLITICS, FREE LABOR, AND SUGAR. 



CHAPTER LVII. 

POLITICS, FREE LABOR, AND SUGAR. 

Through the courtesy of the Mayor I became acquainted 
with some of the radical Union men of New Orleans. Like 
the same class in Richmond and elsewhere, I found them ex- 
tremely dissatisfied with the political situation and prospects. 
" Everything," they said, " has been given up to traitors. 
The President is trying to help the nation oift of its difficulty 
by restoring to power the very men who created the difficulty. 
To have been a good Rebel is now in a man's ftivor ; and to 
have stood by the government through all its trials is against 
him. If an original secessionist, or a time-serving, half-and- 
half Union man, ready to make any concession for the conven- 
ience of the moment, goes to Washington, he gets the ear of 
the administration, and conies away full of encouragement for 
the worst enemies the government ever had. If a man of 
principle goes to Washington, he gets nothing but plausible 
words which amount to nothing, if he is n't actually insulted 
for his trouble." 

I heard everywhere the same complaints from this class. 
And here I may state that they were among the saddest 
things I had to endure in the South. Whatever may be 
thought of the intrinsic merits of any measures, we cannpt 
but feel misgivings when we see our late enemies made jubi- 
lant by them, and loyal men dismayed. 

The Union men of New Orleans were severe in their strict- 
ures on General Banks. " It was he," they said, " who pre- 
cipitated the organization of the State government on a Rebel 
basis. Read his General Orders No. 35, issued March 11th, 
1864, concerning the election of delegates to the Convention. 
Rebels who have taken the amnesty oath are admitted to the 



*^ 



FRENCH CREOLE. - NEWSPAPERS. 407 

polls, and loyal colored men are excluded. Section 4th reads, 
* Every free white man,' &c. Since his return to Massachu- 
setts he has been making speeches in favor of negro suffrao-e. 
He is in favor of it there, where it is popular as an abstrac- 
tion, and a man gets into Congress on the strength of it ; but 
he was not in favor of it here, where there was a chance of 
making it practical. His excuse was, that if black men voted 
white men would take offence, and keep away from the polls. 
Very likely some white men would, but loyal white men 
would n't. That he had the power to extend the franchise to 
the blacks, or at least thought he had, may be seen by his 
apolog}^ for not doing so, in which he says : ' I did not decide 
upon this subject without very long and serious consideration,' 
and so forth. So he let the great, the golden opportunity 
slip, of organizing the State government on a loyal basis, — of 
demonstrating the capacity of the colored man for self-govern- 
ment, and of setting an example to the other Rebel States." 

Being one day in the office of Mv. Durant, a prominent 
lawyer and Union man, I Avas much struck by the languao-e 
and bearing of a gentleman who called upon him, and carried 
on a long conversation in French. Having understood that 
the Creoles were nearly all secessionists, I was surprised to 
hear this man give utterance to the most enlightened Repub- 
lican sentiments. After he had gone out, I expressed my 
gratification at having met him. 

" That," said Mr. Durant, " is one of the ablest and wealth- 
iest business men in New Orleans. He was educated in Paris. 
But there is one thing about him you do not seem to have sus- 
pected. He belongs to that class of Union men the govern- 
ment has made up its mind to leave politically bound in the 
hands of the Rebels. That man, whom you thought refined 
and intelligent, has not the right which the most ignorant, 
Yankee-hating, negro-hating Confederate soldier has. He is 
a colored man, and has no vote." 

There were six daily newspapers pubHshed in New Orleans, 
— five in English and one in English and French, — besides 
several weeklies. There was but one loyal sheet among them, 



408 POLITICS, FREE LABOR, AND SUGAR. 

and that was a " nigger paper," the Tribune, not sold by any 
newsboy, and, I believe, by but one news-dealer. 

I called on General T. W. Sherman, in command of the 
Eastern District of Louisiana, who told me that, in order to 
please the people, our troops had been withdrawn from the 
interior, and that the militia, consisting mostly of Rebel sol- 
diers, many of whom still wore the Rebel uniform, had been 
organized to fill their place. The negroes, whom they treated 
tyrannically, had been made to believe that it was the United 
States, and not the State government, that had thus set their 
enemies to keep guard over them. 

Both Governor Wells and General Sherman had received 
piles of letters from " prominent parties " expressing fears of 
negro insurrections. The most serious indications of bloody 
retribution preparing for the white race had been reported in 
the Teche country, where regiments of black cavalry were 
said to be organized and drilled. The General, on visiting the 
spot, and investigating the truth of the story, learned that it 
had its foundation in the fact that some negro boys had been 
playing soldier with wooden swords. No wonder the Rebel 
militia was thought necessary ! 

From General Baird, Assistant-Commissioner, and General 
Gx'egg, Inspecting- Agent of the Freedmen's Bureau, I ob- 
tained official information regarding the condition of free labor 
in Louisiana. A detailed account of it would be but a recapit- 
ulation, with slight variations, of what I have said of free labor 
in other States. The whites were as ignorant of the true 
nature of the system as the blacks. Capitalists did not under- 
stand how they could secure labor without owning it, or how 
men could be induced to work without the whip. It was thought 
necessary to make a serf of him who was no longer a slave. 
To this end the Legislature had ])assed a code of black laws 
even more objectionable than that enacted by the Legislature 
of Mississippi. By its provisions freedmen were to be arrested 
as vagrants who had not, on the 10th of January, 1866, en- 
tered into contracts for the year. They were thus left little 
clioice as to employers, and none as to terms. They were also 



DEPENDENCE OF THE FREEDMEN. 409 

subjected to a harsh system of fines and punishments for loss 
of time and the infraction of conti'acts ; and made responsible 
for all losses of stock on the plantation, until they should be 
able to prove that they had not killed it. Although these laws 
had not been approved by the Governor, there was no doubt 
but they would be approved and enforced as soon as the na- 
tional troops were removed. 

A majority of the Southern planters clamored for the with- 
drawal of the troops and the Freedmen's Bureau. But Nortl^- 
ern planters settled in the State as earnestly opposed the 
measure. " If the government's protection goes, we must go 
too. It would be impossible for us to live here without it. 
Planters would come to us and say, ' Here, you 've got a nig- 
ger that belongs to us ; ' they would claim him, under the State 
laws, and compel him to go and work for them. Not a first- 
class laborer could we be sure of." 

Here, as elsewhere, the fact that the freedmen had no inde- 
pendent homes, but lived in negro-quarters at the will of the 
owner, placed him under great disadvantages, which the pres- 
ence of the Bureau was necessary to counteract. The plant- 
ers desired nothino; so much as to be left to manacre the nesrroes 
with or without the help of State laws. " With that privilege," 
they said, " we can make more out of them than ever. The 
government must take care of the old and worthless niggers it 
has set free, and we will put through the able-bodied ones." 
The disposition to keep the freedmen in debt by furnishing 
their supplies at dishonest prices, and to impose upon their 
helplessness and ignorance in various other ways, was very 
general. 

Fortunately there was a great demand for labor, and the 
freedmen, Avith the aid of the Bureau, were making favorable 
contracts with their employers. When encouraged by just treat- 
ment and fair wages, they were working well. But they were 
observed to be always happier, thriftier, and more comfortable, 
living in little homes of their own and working land on their 
own account, than in any other condition. " I believe," said 
General Gregg, " the best thing philanthropic Northern cap- 



410 POLITICS, FREE LABOR, AND SUGAR. 

italists can do both for the freedmen and for themselves, is to 
buy up tracts of land, which can be had in some of the most 
fertile sections of Louisiana at two, three, and five dollars an 
acre, to be leased to the freedmen." 

The more enlightened planters were in favor of educating 
the blacks. But the majority were opposed to it ; so that in 
many parishes it was impossible to establish schools, while in 
others it had been very difficult. In January last there were 
2T8 teachers in the State, instructing 19,000 pu])ils in 143 
schools. The expenses, $20,000 a month, were defrayed by 
the Bureau from the proceeds of rents of abandoned and con- 
fiscated estates. But this source of revenue had nearly failed, 
in consequence of the indiscriminate pardoning of Rebel own- 
ers and the restoration of their property. In New Orleans, 
for example, the rents of Rebel estates had dwindled, in Octo- 
ber, 1865, to 88,000 ; in December, to $1,500 ; and they were 
still rapidly diminishing. The result Avas, it had been neces- 
sary to order the discontinuance of all the schools in the State 
at the end of January, the funds in the treasury of the Bureau 
being barely sufficient to hold out until that time. It was 
hoped, however, that they would soon be reestablished on a 
permanent basis, by a tax upon the freedmen themselves. For 
this purpose, the Assistant Commissioner had ordered that five 
per cent, of their wages should be paid by their employers to 
the agents of the Bureau. The freedmen's schools in New 
Orleans were not in session at the time I was there ; but I 
heard them highly praised by those who had visited them. 
Here is Mr. Superintendent Warren's account of them : — 

" From the infant which must learn to count its fingers, to the 
scholar who can read and understand blank-verse, we have grades 
and departments adapted and free to alL Examinations, promotions, 
and gradations are had at stated seasons. The city is divided into 
districts ; each district has its school, and each school the several de- 
partments of primary, intermediate, and grammar. A piincipal is 
appointed to each school, with the requisite number of assistants. 
Our teachers are mostly from the North, with a few Southerners, 
who have heroically dared the storm of prejudice to do good and 



SUGAR PLANTATIONS, AND PROFITS. 411 

right. The normal method of teaching is adopted, and object teach- 
ing is a specialty. 

" There are eight schools in the city, with from two to eight hun- 
dred pupils each, which, with those in the suburbs, amount to sixteen 
schools with nearly six thousand pupils and one hundred teachers." 

It was estimated that there were at least fifty thousand 
Northern men in Louisiana. Some were in the lumber busi- 
ness, which had been stimulated to great activity through- 
out the South. Many were working cotton plantations with 
every prospect of success ; a few had purchased, others were 
paying a fixed rent, while some were furnishing capital to be 
refunded by the crop, of which they were to have a third or a 
half. 

Occasionally I heard of one who had taken a sugar planta- 
tion. Mr. , a merchant of New York, told me he had for 

two years been working the Buena Vista plantation, in St. 
James Parish. He employed an agent, and visited the place 
himself once a year. There were twelve hundred acres under 
cultivation, for which he paid an annual rent of sixteen thou- 
sand dollars. There was one hundred thousand dollars' worth 
of machinery on the plantation. He employed sixty freedmen. 
They worked faithfully and well, but needed careful manage- 
ment. During the past year but one had deserted, while two 
had been discharged. They received one third of their wages 
monthly, and the remainder at the end of the year. " If they 
were paid in full as fast as their work was done, when sugar- 
making season comes they would be apt to quit, the labor is so 
hard, — though we pay them then fifty cents a night extra." 

I inquired concerning profits. " The first year we lost 
money. This year we have made it up, and more. Next 
year we shall be in full blast." 

It takes three years from the start to get a sugar plantation 
going ; and in two years, if neglected, the cane will run out. 
This is the case in Louisiana, — although I Avas told that in 
the West Indies some kinds of cane would yield twenty or 
tliirty successive crops, without replanting. In some parts of 
the State, where the soil is too dry, or the climate too cold 



412 POLITICS, FEEE LABOR, AND SUGAR. 

for tlie most profitable cultivation, it requires replanting every 
year for the subsequent year's crop. 

The majority of the plantations in Lower Louisiana, said to 
bo good for little else but sugar and sweet potatoes, were waste 
and unavailable. St. Mary's Parish had been almost entirely 
abandoned. The cane had run out ; seed-cane was not to be 
had ; and to recommence the culture 'an outlay of capital was 
necessary, from which no such immediate, bountiful returns 
could be anticipated as from the culture of cotton. 

The sugar region and the cotton belt overlap each other. 
Cane may be cultivated to some extent as far north as 34°, 
while cotton ranges as far south as 30°, although it can scarcely 
be considered a safe or profitable crop much below 31°. In 1850 
there were in Louisiana 4205 cotton and 1558 sugar planta- 
tions. Tiiis year cotton is not only king, but a usurper, holding 
with uncertain tenui'e much of the special province of sugar. 

Good cotton ])huitations in Louisiana yield a bale (of five 
hundred pounds) to the acre. The sugar crop varies from 
five hundred to thirty-five hundred pounds, according to the 
fitness of the soil, the length of the season, and the mode of 
culture. A hogshead of eleven hundred and fifty pounds to 
the acre, is about an average crop. 

Five different varieties of cane are used by the planters of 
Louisiana. The cuttings from which it is propagated are called 
" seed-cane." They are cut in September, and laid in " mats," 
— a sort of stack adapted to protect them from frost. Cane 
is usually {)lanted between the months of October and March. 
Two or three stalks are laid together in prepared rows 
seven feet apart, and covered by five or six inches of soil. 
This is called the " mother-cane." Li cold soil it rots, and is 
eaten by vermin. The first year's groAvth is called " plant- 
cane," and is ploughed and hoed like corn. On being cut, 
new stalks spring up from the roots. These subsequent year's 
stalks are called rattoons, — a West Indian M'ord, derived from 
the Spanish retond, (j'etonar, to sprout again,) which was prob- 
ably imported into Louisiana, together with the Creole cane, 
by the refugees from St. Domingo, in 1794. 



DESCRIPTION OF A SUGAR-MILL. 413 

" There 's nothing handsomer," said my friend Dick P , 



the overseer, " than a field of cane on the first of June, higli 
as your head, all green, a thousand acres, waving and shining 
in the wind." It is a lively scene when a gang of fifty (jr sixty 
negroes, armed with knives, enter such a field in the fall, and 
the cuttino; beirins. 

I was desirous of seeing a sugar-mill in operation, but could 
hear of none within convenient visiting distance. The scene 
is thus described in a letter written by a Northern lady whose 
husband was last year working a Louisiana plantation : — 

" I am sitting in the gallery of a building two hundred and fifty 
feet long. Xhis gallery was made expressly for the white overseer, 
and overlooks all that is going on in the main building. There is a 
sleeping-room in each end of it, and a large open space in the middle 
which serves as a dining-room ; here I am writing. In the opposite 
end of the building I can see the engine which carries all the ma- 
chinery ; just this side of it are the great rollers that crush the cane, 
and the apron, or feed-carrier, that carries the cane from the shed 
outside up to the crushers. 

" Just this side of the crushers are four large vats that receive the 
juice. From these it is carried into two large kettles, where the 
lime is put in, and the juice is raised to the boiling-point, and then 
skimmed. From these kettles the juice is transferred by means of a 
bucket attached to a long pole, to the next kettle, whei'e it is worked 
to the right consistency for clarifying. 

"This done, it is conveyed, by means of a steam-pump, to the filter- 
ing room, where it is passed into large vats filled with burnt bones, 
called bone black, through which it is filtered, and thus freed from all 
impurities. From these filters it is run off into a large cistern, and 
pumped up by the same steam-pump into tanks, where, by means of 
faucets, it is drawn into the sugaring-off pan. In this pan it is heated 
by means of a coil of pipe that winds round and round till it fills the 
bottom of the pans and carries the steam which, in from fifteen to 
twenty minutes, finishes the boiling process. From this pan it is let 
off into a box car, set on a railroad track which, runs up and down 
between the coolers, which are ranged along each side of this end of 
the building, like pews in a church. 

"The Creoles along the coast have looked with amazement all sum- 



414 POLITICS, FREE LABOR, AND SUGAR. 

mer upon oui' success with free black laborers, and have been obliged 
to acknowledge that they never saw a more cheerful, industrious set 
of laborers in all their experience. ' But wait till sugar-making 
comes,' they have said, ' and then see if you can get off your crop 
without the old system of compulsion. Your niggers will flare up 
when you get off your ten-hour system. They are not going to Avork 
night and day, and you cannot get off the crop unless they do.' 

"White sugar-makers presented themselves, telling us, in all so- 
briety, ' Niggers cannot be trusted to make sugar,' and offering, with 
great magnanimity, to oversee the matter for five hundred dollars. 

J declined all such friendly offers, and last Monday morning 

commenced grinding cane. The colored men and women went to work 
with .a will, — no shirking or flinching. The cutters pushed the 
handlers, tlie handlers pushed the haulers, and so on, night and day, 
each gang taking their respective watches, and all moving on with 
the regularity of clock-work. 

"And so the business went on with black engineers, black crush- 
ers, black filterers, black sugar-makers, — all black throughout, — 
but the sugar came out splendid in quantity and quality. Sixty 
hogsheads of sugar, finished by Saturday night, and things in readi- 
ness for the Sabbath's rest, is acknowledged by old planters to be the 
largest run ever made in this sugar-house for the first week of the 
sugar season. So they gape and stare, and wonder that humanity 
and justice can bring forth more profitable results than the driver's 
whip." 

Louisiana has been the great sugar-growing State of the 
Union. For several years before the war, the annual crop 
varied from 100,000 to 450,000 hogsheads. In 1864 less than 
nine thousand hogsheads were produced. In 1865 tlie crop 
amounted to between sixteen and seventeen thousand hogs- 
heads, less than was raised in 1860 on four plantations ! 

Attempts were being made to introduce white laborers into 
Louisiana. While I was there, one hundred Germans, who 
had been hired in New York for a sugar plantation, were 
landed in New Orleans. Within twenty-four hours thirty of 
them deserted for higher wages ; by which trifling circum- 
stance planters, who had hoped to exchange black for white 
labor, were very much disgusted. 



CAPTURE OF STEAMER " WATER- WITCH." 415 



CHAPTER LVIII. 

THE BATTLE OF MOBILE BAY. 

Leaving New Orleans for Mobile at half-past four o'clock, 
by the usual route, I reached Lake Ponchartrain by railroad 
in time to take the steamer and be off at sunset. 

The lake, with its low, dark-wooded shores, and its placid, 
glassy waters, unruffled by a breeze, outspread under the even- 
ing sky, was a scene of solitary and tranquil beauty. Here 
its breast was burnished with the splendors of a reflected 
cloud, which faded, leaving upon the darkening rim of the 
lake the most delicate belts of green, and blue, and violet, 
until these faded in their turn, and the gloomy surface ap- 
peared sprinkled all over with molten stars. Strange constel- 
lations rose in the Southern hemisphere ; while others about 
the opposite pole, which never set in the latitude of the North- 
ern States, were below the horizon. The " Dipper " was 
dipped in the lake. I had never seen the North Star so low 
before. 

I walked the deck with the mate, who had been a good 
Rebel, and was concerned in the capture of the United States 
steamer " Water Witch." 

" I had command of one of the boats," said he. " There 
was a consultation of officers, and it was proposed to make the 
attack that night at eleven o'clock ; we would have the tide 
with us then. ' For that very reason,' I said, ' I would post- 
pone it until two. Then we shall have the tide against us. 
It will be harder pulling down to her, but we can board better, 
and if we miss grappling the first time we shan't drift by and 
get fired upon ; and if we fail, we can come back on the tide.' " 

The steamer was surprised, and the boarding was a success. 
" The officer in command of our party was killed, and the 



416 



THE BATTLE OF MOBILE BAY. 



command devolved upon me. I got three wounds, one through 
this arm, one across my stomach, and one througli the fleshy 
part of my thigh. But I laid out a man for each wound. I 
got to the cahin, and had my sword at the captain's throat, 
and would have run him through, if he had n't been mighty 
glib in his speech : ' I surrender ! I surrender ! ' He did n't 
stammer a bit ! ' Do you suri*ender your command ? ' ' Yes, 
yes ! I do I ' And in a minute I stopped the fighting." 

This is tlie style of story one hears travelling anywhere in 
the South. Lying in my berth in the cabin, I was kept awake 
half the night by Rebel soldiers relating similar adventures. 

The next mornins; we were in the Gulf of Mexico. We 
had entered by the South Pass, the tide being unfavorable for 
an inside passage between the islands and the coast. It was a 
summer-like, beautiful day. Gulls and pelicans were sailing 
around and over tlie steamer and sporting on the waves. On 




A POET IN THE FIGHT. 417 

the south was the open Gulf; on our left, a series of low, bar- 
ren, sandy islands, — Ship Island among them, reminding one 
of Butler's Expedition. 

All the morning we sailed the lustrous, silken waters of the 
Gulf; approaching in the afternoon the entrance to Mobile 
Bay. Porpoises were tumbling, and pelicans diving, all around 
us. Flocks of gulls followed, picking up the fragments of our 
dinner thrown overboard by the cook. Sometimes a hundred 
would be fighting in the air for a morsel one of them had 
picked up, — chasing the bird that bore it, snatching it, drop- 
ping it, and darting to catch it as it fell, — until left far behind, 
and almost lost to sight on the horiJion ; then they would come 
up again, flapping low along our white wake, until another 
fragment attracted and detained them. 

We passed the curious, well-defined line, where tlie yellow- 
ish river-water from the Bay and the pure liquid crystal of the 
Gulf met and mingled. On our left, the long, smooth swells 
burst into white breakers on the shoals below Pelican Island. 
On the point of Dauphin Island beyond was Fort Gaines, 
while close upon our right, as we passed up, was Fort Mor- 
gan, on a point of the main land, — its brick walls built upon 
a sheet of sand white as snow. 

Having kept the outside passage, instead of the usual route of 
the New Orleans steamers, our course lay between these forts, 
up the main ship-channel, past the scene of Farragut's famous 
fight. I thought of Brownell's ringing lyric of that day : — 

" Gaines growled low on our left, 

Morgan roared on our right : 
Before us, gloomy and fell, 
With breath like the fume of hell. 
Lay the Dragon of iron shell, 

Driven at last to the fight ! 



" Every ship was drest 
In her bravest and her best, 

As if for a July day ; 
Sixty flags and three, 

As we floated up the Bay ; 
Every peak and mast-head flew 
27 



418 THE BATTLE OF MOBILE BAY. 

The brave Red, White, and Blue : 
We were eighteen ships that day. 



" On in the whirling shade 

Of the cannon's sulphury breath. 

We drew to the Line of Death 
That our devilish Foe had laid ; 
Meshed in a horrible net, 

And baited villanous well. 
Right in our path were set 

Three hundred traps of hell ! " 

These were the torpedoes, one of which destroyed the iron- 
clad " TecLimseh," Commander T. A. M. Craven. 

" A moment we saw her turret, 

A little heel she gave, 
And a thin white spray went o'er her. 

Like the crest of a breaking wave ; 
In that great iron coffin. 

The Channel for their gi-ave, 

The Fort their monument, 
(Seen afar in the offing,) 
Ten fiithom deep lie Craven, 

And the bravest of our brave." 

We passed very near to the spot where that " great iron 
coffin" still lies at the hottoni of the stream. 
But the ships went in undismayed. 

" Right abreast of the Fort, 

In an awful shroud they lay, 

Broadsides thundering away, 
And lightnings in every port, — 

Scene of glory and dread ! 
A storm-cloud all aglow 

With flashes of fiery red, 
The thunder raging below. 

And the forest of flags overhead ! 



" Fear? a forgotten form ! 

Death ? a dream of the eyes ! 
We were atoms in God's great storm 
That roared through the angry skies." 



A MODERN NAVAL COMBAT. 419 

The combat with the Rebel ram " Tennessee," the " Dragon 
of iron shell," commanded by Admiral Buchanan, (the same 
who commanded the " Merrimac " in her brief but brilliant 
career in Hampton Roads,) was as fierce as any of the old sea- 
fights, but wholly unique and modern. 

" Half the fleet, in an angry ring, 
Closed round the hideous Thing, 
Hammering with solid shot, 
And bearing down, bow on bow : 

He has but a minute to choose ; 
Life or Renown ? — which now 

Will the Rebel Admiral lose ? 

" Cruel, haughty, and cold, 
He was ever strong and bold : 

Shall he shrink from a wooden stem ? 
He will think of that brave band 
He sank in the ' Cumberland,' — 

Ay, he will sink like them ! 

«' Nothing left but to fight 
Boldly his last sea-fight ! 

Can he strike ? By Heaven, 't is true i 
Down comes the traitor Blue, 
And up goes the captive White ! 

" Up went the White ! Ah, then, 
The hurrahs that once and again 
Rang from three thousand men 

All flushed and savage with fight ! 
Our dead lay cold and stark. 
But our dying, down in the dark, 

Answered as best they might, — 
Lifting their poor lost arms. 

And cheering for God and Right ! " 



420 MOBILE. 



CHAPTER LIX. 

MOBILE. 

Above the forts the merchant fleet lies at andior, twenty- 
five miles from Mobile, — the shallowness of the bay prevent- 
ing at all times vessels drawing more than ten feet of water 
from going up to the city. The extensive gulf coast of Louis- 
iana, Mississippi, and Alabama, presents not a single first-class 
harbor. The first you meet with is that of Pensacola. 

Steamers were plying between the ships and the city, re- 
ceiving and delivering cargoes. We met or passed them as 
we kept on our course. Blueish lines of forests enclosed the 
Bay. Four miles below the city we came in sight of the Rebel 
defences. On our right were the bastion and extensive forti- 
fications of Spanish Fort, commanding Minetta Bay and sev- 
eral miles of the coast of Mobile Bay. Tliis work, originally 
built by De Soto more than three centuries ago, was finally 
invested by our fleet and land forces on the day of the fall of 
Richmond. It surrendered on the ninth of April, and on the 
eleventh Mobile was evacuated. The water approaches to 
this fort, and to the other defences of the city, were strewn 
with torpedoes, by which four or five vessels of our fleet were 
blown up. 

We passed a line of obstructions, consisting of piles and 
suni-:en wrecks thrown across the channel ; and Mobile, a 
smoking, sunlit city, lay before us on the low shore. By the 
direct channel it was less than three miles distant ; but, in 
order to reach it, we were compelled to ascend Spanish River 
to the Mobile River, and descend that stream, a circuit of over 
twenty miles. It was four o'clock when we reached the wharf. 
Mobile is a level, shady town, regularly laid out, and 
built on a dry, sandy plain. It is the principal city of Ala- 



M 

b 

o 




THE TERRIBLE EXPLOSION AT :M0BILE. 421 

Lama, and the second city in importance in the Gulf States ; 
its commerce ranking next to that of New Orleans. For sev- 
eral years before the war its annual exports of cotton were 
between six and seven hundred thousand bales. It endured a 
four years' blockade, falling into Federal hands only at the 
latter end of the war. 

But its great catastrophe did not occur until some time after 
the termination of hostilities. It would seem as if the genius 
of Destruction was determined to strike a final blow at the 
city. The explosion of the lately captured Confederate ammu- 
nition was one of the most terrible disasters of the kind ever 
known. It was stored in a large three-story warehouse one 
street back from the river. The last of Dick Taylor's shells 
were going in, when, it is supposed, one of them accidentally 
io-nited. Twenty brick blocks, and portions of other blocks, 
were instantly blown to atoms. Four or five hundred persons 
were killed, — it was never known how many. A black vol- 
canic cloud of smoke and fragments went up into the sky: 
" It was big as a mountain," said one. It was succeeded by 
a fearful conflagration sweeping over the field of ruins. Ten 
thousand bales of cotton were burned. The loss of property 
was so immense that nobody ventured to estimate it. 

In the vicinity of the explosion, citizens were throAvn off 
their feet, chimneys knocked down, and windows and doors 
demolished. Lights of glass were broken all over the city, a 
mile or more from the scene of the explosion. 

"I was lifted from the ground, and my hat thrown off," 
said one. "Then I looked up, and there were great black 
blocks of something in the air, high as I could see, and shells 
exploding." 

Said another : " I was riding out a mile and a half from 
the city. I heard a sound, and at the same time my head and 
shoulders were thrown forward on my horse's neck, as if I had 
dodged. ' That 's the first time I 've dodged a cannon,' I said, 
' and that 's after the war is over.' I looked around, and saw 
the strangest cloud going up slowly over the city. Then I 
knew it was the shock that had thrown me down." 



422 MOBILE. 

The town had neither the means nor the material to re- 
build : " We made no bricks during the war." I found the 
scene of the disaster a vast field of ruins. Where had stood 
the warehouse in which the ammunition was stored, there 
was a pit twenty feet deep, half filled with water, and sur- 
rounded by fragments of iron and bricks, and unexploded 
shells. A large brick block, containing a cotton-press, which 
stood between the magazine and the river, had entirely disap- 
peared. " The bricks were all blown into the water, and we 
never saw them any more." 

Business was brisk. " There are more goods on Dauphin 
Street to-day," an old merchant told me, " than I have ever 
before seen in the whole of Mobile." And the captain of the 
Mobile steamer, who took me up the Alabama to Selma, said : 
" There was never such a trade on this river before. Nobody 
ever expected such a freight on this boat : her guards are all 
under water." Her upward-bound lading consisted mostly of 
supplies for plantations and provincial stores, — barrels of 
Western flour and whiskey that had come down the Missis- 
sippi, and boxes of fine liquors, soap, starch, and case goods, 
from the North Atlantic ports. Her downward freight was 
chiefly cotton. 



A DESPAIRING ALABAMIAN. 423 



CHAPTER LX. 

ALABAMA PLANTERS. 

The Alabama River steamers resemble those of the Missis- 
sippi, although inferior in size and style. But one meets a 
very different class of passengers on board of them. The 
Alabamians are a plain, rough set of men, not so fast as the 
Mississippi- Valley planters, but more sober, more solid, more 
loyal. They like their glass of grog, however, and some of 
them are very sincere in their hatred of the government. I 
found the most contradictory characters among them, which 
I cannot better illustrate than by giving some specimens of 
their conversation. 

Here is one of the despairing class. " The country is 
ruined ; not only the Southern country, but the Northern 
country too. The prosperity of our people passed away with 
the institution of slavery. I shall never try to make another 
fortune. I made one, and lost it in a minute. I had a hun- 
dred and fifty thousand dollars in niggers. I am now sixty 
years old. I '11 bet a suit of clothes against a dime, there '11 
be no cotton crop raised this year. If there 's a crop grown, 
the hands that raise it won't pick it. Some few niggers go 
on, and do well, just as before ; but they 're mighty scarce. 
They never will be as well off again as they have been, and 
some of 'em see it. A nigger drayman came to me the other 
day and asked me to buy him. He said, ' I want a master. 
When I had a master, I had nothing to do but to eat and 
drink and sleep, besides my work. Now I have to work and 
think too.' When I said the law would n't allow me to buy 
him, he looked very much discouraged." 

I heard of a few such cases as this drayman's, but they 



424 ALABAMA PLANTERS. 

were far less common than one would have expected. Poor 
fellow, he did not know that if he was ever to be anything 
but an animal, a beast of burden, it was necessary for him to 
begin to think. 

Mr. J , of Marengo County, also an old man, talked in 

a different spirit. 

" The trouble with the freedmen is, they have not yet 

earned that living is expensive. They never before had any 
idea where their clothes came from, except that ' Master gave 

em to me.' In my county, I find them generally better dis- 
posed than the whites. I don't know of a case where they 

lave been treated kindly and justly, and have deserted their 
masters. A few restless ones are exceptions. I noticed one 
of my boys that I had asked to make a contract for the coming 
year, packing up his things ; and I said to him, ' Warren, what 
are you doing ? ' He replied, ' Master, they say if we make 
contracts now, we '11 be branded, and made slaves again.' I 
had always treated him well. I don't remember that I ever 
struck him, but he says I did strike him once, and he 's a 
truthful boy. Another old man that I was raised with, said, 
' JNIaster, all the contract I want with you is that you shall 
bui-y me, or I '11 bury you.' He said he would go on and 
work for me like he always had ; and he '11 do it, for he 's an 
honest man." 

Mr. J related the case of one of his neighbors who 

contracted with his freedmen to furnish their supplies and give 
thetn one fifth of the crop. He gave them provisions for a 
year at the start ; and deducted a dollar a day for lost time. 
" He raised the largest crop of corn he ever did ; but when he 
came to harvest it, he owed them nothing, though he had kept 
his contract. He was honest, but he had managed badly. I 

give my hands a share of the crop," added Mr. J . " But 

I do not give them provisions any faster than they need them, 
for if I did they would call in their friends, make a great 
feast, and cat up everything, — they are so generous and im- 
provident. I deduct a dollar a day for lost time, but instead 
of putting it into my own pocket, I give the lazy man's dollar 



A GOOD YAKKEE-HATER. 425 

to those who do the hizy man's work. I find that encourages 
them, and the consequence is, ther-e are few lost days." 

This o-enial old o-entleman, whom I found to be well known 
and highly esteemed throughout the country, justitied the 
North in its course during the war, and expressed confidence 
in the future of the South under the free-labor system. 

Mr. G-- , one of the bitterest Yaidvce-haters I met, be- 
came nevertheless one of my most intimate steamboat acquaint- 
ances. I cull the following from many talks I had with him. 

" I owned a cotton factory in Dallas County, above Selma. 
I had two plantations besides, and an interest in a tan-yard. 
Wilson's Thieves came in, and just stripped me of everything. 
They burned eight hundred bales of cotton for me. That was 
because I happened to be running my mill for the Confederate 
government. I was makinir Osnaburos for the p-ovcrnment 
for a dollar a yard, when citizens would have paid me four 
dollars a yard; and do you imagine I'd have done that ex- 
cept under compulsion? But the Yankee rascals did n't stop 
to consider that fact. They skipped my neighbors' cotton and 
burned mine. 

" In other respects they treated them as bad as they did me. 
They robbed our houses of everything they could find and 
carry away. I should n't have had a thing left, if it had n't 
been for my niggers. Some of 'em run off my mules and 
saved 'em. I gave all my gold and silver to an old woman 
who kept it hid from the raiders. On one of my plantations 
a colored carpenter and his wife barrelled up three barrels of 
fine table crockery and buried it. One of the Yankee officers 
rode up and said to this woman, ' Where 's your husband ? ' 
' There 's my husband,' she said, pointing to the mulatto. 
' You 're a sight whiter 'n he is,' he said, — for she is Avhite as 
anybody, and he had taken her for the lady of the house. An 
old negro saved the tannery by pleading with the vandals, 
and lying to 'em a little bit. 

" Three hundred and fifty thousand dollars in gold would n't 
cover my losses. I never can feel towards this government 
like I once did. I got started to leave the countiy ; I swore 



426 ALABAMA PLANTERS. 

I wouldn't live under a government that had treated me in 
this Avay. I made up my mind to go to Brazil. I got as fixr 
as Mobile, and changed my mind. Now I 've concluded to 
remain here, like any alien. I 'm a foreigner. I scorn to be 
called a citizen of the United States. I shall take no oath, so 
help me God! Unless," he added immediately, "it is to 
enable me to vote. I want to vote to give the suffrage to the 
negro." 

As I expressed my surprise at this extraordinary wish, he 
went on : " Because I think that will finish the job. I think 
then we '11 have enough of the nigger. North and South, and 
all will combine to put him out of the countiy." 

" It seems to me," I said, " you are a little ungrateful after 
aU you say your negroes have done for you." 

" There are a few fliithful ones among them," he replied. 
"If all were like some of mine I wouldn't say anything. 
They 're as intelligent and well behaved as anybody. But I 
can't stand free niggers, any how ! " 

" I notice," said I, " that every man who curses the black 
race, and prays for its removal or extermination, makes excep- 
tions in favor of negroes he has raised or owned, until I am 
beginning to think these exceptions compose a majority of the 
colored population." 

G made no reply to the remark, but resumed, — 

" I want this country filled up with white men. I want the 
lai'ge plantations cut up, and manufixctories established. We 
never had any manufactories for this reason : Southern capi- 
talists all jammed their money into niggers and land. As 
their caj^ital increased, it was a few more niggers, a little more 
land. The few factories we had were consequently one-horse 
concerns, that could n't compete with those at the North. 
They were patronized by men who wanted to buy on credit. 
If a man had cash, he went to the North to buy goods ; if 
he was short, he bought here. Consequently, to carry on a 
business of a hundred thousand dollars, a capital of three hun- 
dred thousand dollars was necessary. Tvvo thirds of it was 
sunk : below the water, like the guards of this boat. 



CONFLICTING OriNIONS. 427 

" Now I want the old system played out. But," continued 

G , " if the Freedmen's Bureau is withdrawn, things will 

work back again into their old grooves. The nigger is going 
to be made a serf, sure as you live. It won't need any law 
for that. Planters will have an unders'tanding among them- 
selves : ' You won't hire my niggers, and I won't hire yours ; ' 
then what 's left for them ? They 're attached to the soil, 
and we 're as much their masters as ever. I '11 stake my life, 
this is the way it will work. The country will be no better 
off than it ever was. To make a forming and manufacturing 
country, like you have at the North, Ave must put the nigger 
out of the way. For this reason, I hope the cotton crop this 
year will be a failure. And I not only hope, but I know it 
will. There a'n't labor enough in the country ; the planters 
are going to bid against each other, and make contracts they 
won't be able to keep, and that 's going to put the Old Harry 
into the freedmen." 

I remarked that, as long as the demand for labor exceeded 
the supply, planters would continue to bid against each other, 
and that the plan he had suggested, by which the freedman 
was to be made a serf without the aid of legislation, would 
thus be defeated. 

" Let the Bureau be taken away," he replied, " and plant- 
ers will come into the arrangement. That is, all honorable 
ones will ; and if a man has n't honor enough to come in, he '11 
be scared in. If he hires my niggers, or yours, he '11 be 
mobbed." 

Mr. H , of Lowndes County, often joined in our con- 
versation. " I don't believe my friend G here believes 

half he says. I am sure the South is going to make this year 
a million bales, — probably much more. One thing planters 
have got to learn : the old system is ggne up, and Ave must 
begin ncAv. It Avon't do to employ the old overseers ; they 
can't learn to treat the freedmen like human beings. I told 
my OA'erseer the old style Avould n't do, — the niggers Avould n't 
stand it, — and he promised better fashions ; but it was n't 
tAVO days before he fell from grace, and went to Avhipping 



428 ALABAMA PLANTEES. 

again. That just raised the Old Scratch with tliem ; and I 
don't blame 'em." 

H Avent on to say that it was necessary now to treat 

the negroes like men. " We must deal justly with them ; " 
he had a great deal to say about justice. *' We must reason 
with them, — for they ai'e reasonable beings;" and he re- 
peated some of the excellent homilies with which he had 
enlightened their consciences and understandings. 

" ' Formerly,' I said to them, ' you were my slaves ; you 
worked for me, and I pi'ovided for you. You hud no thought 
of the morrow, for I thought of that for you. If you were 
sick, I had the doctor come to you. When you needed 
clothes, clothes were forthcoming ; and you never went hun- 
gry for lack of meal and pork. You had little more respon- 
sibility than my mules. 

" ' But now all that is changed. Being free men, you 
assume the responsibilities of free men. You sell me your 
labor, I jjay you money, and with that money you provide for 
yourselves. You must look out for your own clothes and 
food, and the wants of your children. If I advance these 
things for you, I shall charge them to you, for I cannot give 
them like I once did, now I pay you wages. Once if you 
were ugly or lazy, I had you whipped, and that was the end 
of it. Now if you are ugly and lazy, your wages will be ])aid 
to others, and you will be turned oif, to go about the country 
with bundles on your backs, like the miserable low-down 
niggers you see that nobody will hire. But if you are well- 
behaved and industrious, you will be prosperous and respected 
and happy.' 

" They all imderstood this talk," added H , "and liked 

it, and went to work like men on the strength of it. If every 
planter would begin, that way with his freedmen, there 'd be 
no trouble. There 's everything in knowing how to manage 
them." 

" If anybody knows how to manage them, you do," said 

G . Then turning to me : " H is the shrewdest 

manager in this country. There 's a good story about his 
managing a nigger and a horse ; — shall I tell it, H ? " 



SHREWD MANAGEMENT. 429 

" Go ahead," said H , laughing. 

" An old nigger of his picked up a horse the Yankee raiders 
had turned loose in the country, and brought him home to 

H 's j)lantation. The old nigger gave the horse to his son 

Sip, and died. The horse had been used up, but he turned 

out to be a mighty good one, — just such an animal as H 

wanted ; so he laid claim to him, and Sip had to go to the 
Freedmen's Bureau for an order to compel my friend here to 
give him up. He told his story, got the order, and brought it 

home, and showed it to H , who looked at it, then looked 

at Si]), and said, ' Do you know what this paper says ? ' 'It 
says I 'm to have de boss ; dat 's what dey told me.' ' I '11 tell 

you what it says,' and H pretended to read the order : 

' If this hoy troubles you any more about that horse^ give him a 
sound thrashing ! ' ' 'Fore God,' says Sip, ' I done went to 
de wrong man ! ' " 

I looked to see H , the just man, who treated his freed 

people like rational beings, deny the truth of this story. 

" G has told something near the fact ; but there 's one 

thing he has left out. I just put my Spencer to Sip's head, 
and told him if he pestered me any more about that horse, I'd 
kill him. He knew I was a man of my word, and he never 
pestei-ed me any more." 

I thought G must have intended the story as a hard hit 

at H 's honesty ; but I now saw that he really meant it as 

a compliment to his " shrewd management," and that as such 
H received it with satisfaction. 

" But," said I, •' as you relate the circumstance, it seems to 
me the horse belonged to Sip." 

" A nigger has no use for a horse like that," replied H . 

" He had been brought on to the plantation and fed there 
at H 's expense," explained G . 

" Had n't he done work enough to pay for his keeping? " 

" Yes, and ten times over," said H , frankly. " I fore- 
saw in the beginning there was going to be trouble about the 
ownership of that horse. So I told my driver to kill him, — 
with hard work, I mean. He tried his best to do it ; but he 



430 ALABAMA PLANTERS. 

was such a tough beast, he did the work and grew fat all the 
time." 

I was still unable to see why the horse did not belong right- 
fully to Sip, instead of his master. But one thing I did see, 
more and more ])lainly : that it was impossible for the most 
honorable men who had been bred up under the institution 
of slavery to deal at all times and altogether honorably with 

those they had all their lives regarded as chattels, Mr. H 

was one of the fairest and most sensible men in his speech 
whom I chanced to meet ; and I believe that he was sincere, 
— or at least meant to be sincere. I made inquiries concern- 
ing him of his neighbors fifty miles around, — for every large 
planter knows every other, at least by reputation, within a cir- 
cuit of several counties, — and all spoke of him as a just and 
upright man. No doubt if I had had dealings with hira^I 
should have found him so. He meant to give the freedmen 
their rights, but he was only beginning dimly to perceive that 
they had any rights ; and when it came to treating a black 
man Avith absolute justice, he did not know the meaning of the 
word. 

Mr. B , of Monroe County, was a good sample of the 

hopeful class. 

" We 're brushed out, and must begin new. I 've lost as 
much as any other man, but it 's foolish to sit down and com- 
plain of that. I believe if Southern men Avill only take cour- 
age, and do their best, in five years the country will be more 
prosperous than ever. When you hear it said the country is 
ruined, and the niggers won't work, the trouble is in them 
that make the complaint, and not in the niggers. My niggers 
say to me, ' Massa Joe, we ought to work mo'e 'n Ave ever did 
befo'e ; for once, we just worked for our victuals and clothes, 
and now we 're getting wages besides.' And they '11 do it, — 
they are doing it. If you want a freedman to do what he 
promises, you 've only to set him the example, and do by him 
just what you promise. I 've a negro foreman on my planta- 
tion that has been with me twenty years ; and I can trust him 
to manage just as far as I can trust myself. 



AGRICULTURAL ASSOCIATION". 4|1 

" Talk about the country being ruined ! " B went on : 

" I 'm sick of such nonsense. Just look at it. I hire my 
freedmen by the year ; I give four and five dollars a month to 
women, and seven and eight to men. A woman will do about 
two thirds as much work ploughing, hoeing, and picking as a 
man. For two months now I shall keep my women spinning 
and making clothes, and my men cutting and hauling wood to 
the steamboats, for which I get four dollars a cord. That will 
pay their "svages and more. Then what have we got to do the 
rest of the year ? Make a ci'op of cotton. If we don't make 
more than a quarter of a crop, it will pay handsomely, at pres- 
ent prices ; but it 's my opinion yve shall make a good crop. 
I used to find it profitable to pay a hundred and fifty dollars a 
year for slaves, with cotton at ten cents a pound ; and if I 
can't make money now, I 'm a fool." 

A Mobile merchant, overhearing this talk, remarked : " You 

are the most hopeful man, Mr. B , I ever saw. I don't 

know but what you say is true ; but it won't do to talk it 
very loud, so they '11 hear it on the other side of the water. 
It 's our pohcy to talk the other way, and keep the prices up." 

B assured me that the majority of the planters in 

Monroe County were of his way of thinking. They had 
formed an Agricultural Association, the object of which was 
" to protect and preserve the colored population, by furnishing 
them' employment and ministering to their wants and neces- 
sities." The constitution adopted by this association breathes 
such a different spirit from the serf-codes of Mississippi, Louis- 
iana, and South Carolina, that it is refreshing and encouraging 
to refer to it. I quote some of its provisions : — 

"Article 6tb. It shall be the duty of the Executive Committee 
to look after the welfare of tlie freedmen, in their respective beats, 
to inspect and sanction each and every contract made between the 
freedmen and their employers, and to see that said freedmen are not 
deceived or overreached in any contract made witli the employer. . . . 
And when any contract, as aforesaid, shall be fairly and understand- 
ingly made, it shall be the law between the parties thereto, and when 
any difficulty arises between any freedman and his white employer, 



432 ALABAMA PLANTERS. 

relative to the construction or performance of any contract, said com- 
mitteeman may act as arbitrator between the parties, and his decision 
shall be final, unless one or both of the parties desire an appeal. 

" Art. 8th. It shall be the duty of all the officers of this Asso- 
ciation, to see that the freedman shall receive from his employer his 
wafres or earnings, and in case such employer refuses to pay promptly 
such wages and earnings, to aid the freedman by their full power in 
the collection of the same. 

"AuT. 9th. It sliall also be the duty of this Association, and 
particularly the officers thereof, to see that the freedman shall com- 
ply with his contracts with his employer unless he can show some 
good or reasonable excuse for the non-performance. 

"Art. loth. It shall be the duty of the said Association to pro- 
vide a home for the aged and helpless freedmen of the county, and 
for such others as are uiialde to make an honest support, and to see 
that they are provided with the necessaries of lii'e, — to devise ways 
and means for their permanent relief and suppoi-t. 

"Art. 15th. It shrdl be the duty of this Association, and all the 
officers thereof, to favor, as much as possible, the education and 
schooling of the colored children in said county, and to aid in devis- 
ing ways and means, and making arrangements for having said chil- 
dren properly taught and their general morals taken care of." 

The association taxed itself for the purpose of carryino- out 
the provisions of its constitution. Every }»]anter in Moin-oe 
County liad joined it. General Swayne, Assistant-Commis- 
sioner of the Freedmen's Bureau for Alabama, had approved 
its action, and appointed its president superintendent of freed- 
men for that county. " Tlie thing is workincr admirably," said 

B . " The planters are encouraged, and the freedmen are 

contented and at work." 

I said to him : " If all tlie members of the association are 
as sincere as yourself, and will perform what tliey promise ; 
if all the counties in the State will follow the example of Mon- 
roe ; and if other States will follow the example of Alabama, 
there will be no longer any trouble about reconstruction : the 
great problem of tlie country will bo solved." 

He said he believed so, and was sure the association Avould 
act in good faith. And I heard afterwards that Conecuh 
County had already followed the example of Monroe. 



THE MAKING OF PLOUGHS. 433 



CHAPTER LXL 

WILSON'S RAID. 

We had lovely weather, sailing up the Alabama River. 
The shores were low, and covered with canebrakes, or with 
growths of water-oak, gum, sycamore, and cotton-wood trees, 
with here and there dark and shaggy swamps. Then planta- 
tions began to appear, each with its gin-house and cotton-press, 
planter's house, corn-crib, and negro-quarters, on the river's 
bank. 

The sycamores, with their white trunks covered all over 
with small black spots, and heavily draped with long moss, 
presented a peculiar appearance. Green tufts of the mis' 
tletoe grew upon the leafless tree-tops. Clouds of blackbirds 
sometimes covered the shore, casting a shadow as they flew. 
The second day, the low shores disappeared, replaced by 
pleasantly wooded bluflPs and elevated plantations. 

Nearly all the planters I met had been down to Mobile to 
purchase their supplies for the season. Freight went ashore 
at every landing. Recent rains had made the steep clayey 
banks as slippery as if they had been greased ; and it was 
quite exciting to see the deck-hands carry up the freight, — 
many a poor fellow getting a perilous fall. The wo'od for 
the steamboat was sometimes shot from the summit of the 
bluff down a long wooden spout which dropped it at the 
landing;. 

Seeing some heavy bars of iron going ashore at one place, 
I asked an old gentleman to what use they were put on the 
plantation. 

" They are to make ploughs of, sir." 

" Does every plantation make its own ploughs ? " 

" Do we make our own ploughs ? " he repeated, regarding 

28 o o 



SELMA. — CHAIN-GANG. 435 

me witli astonishment and indin;nation. " Wli^y, sir, it would n't 
be a civilized country, if we did n't. How do you think, sir, 
we should get our ploughs ? " 

" Buy them, or have them made for you." 

" Buy our ploughs ! It would impoverish us, sir, if Ave had 
to buy our ploughs." 

" On the contrary, I should think a plough-factory could 
furnish them for less than they now cost you, — that, like 
boots and shoes, it would be cheaper to buy them than to 
make them." 

" No, sir ! I 've a black man on my plantation who can 
make as good a plough, at as little cost, as can be made any- 
where in the world." 

After that I had nothing to saj', having already sufficiently 
exposed my ignorance. 

On the third day (it was the slowest trip, our captain said, 
which he had made in twenty years) we reached Selma, three 
hundred miles above Mobile, — a pleasantly situated town, 
looking down from the level summit of a bluff that rises 
almost precipitously from the river. Before the war it had 
three thousand inhabitants, and exported annually near a 
hundred thousand bales of cotton. It is connected by rail-_ 
roads wath the North and West, and by railroad and river 
with Montgomery and the East. It was a point of very great 
importance to the Confederacy. 

I found it a scene of " Yankee vandalism " and ruin. The 
Confederate arsenal, founderies, and rolling-mills, — the most 
important works of the kind in the South, covering many 
acres of ground, furnished with coal and iron by the surround- 
ing country, — together with extensive Avarehouses containing 
ammunition and military stores, were burned when Wilson 
captured the place. A number of private stores and dwellings 
were likewise destroyed ; and the work of rebuilding them 
was not yet half completed. 

Climbing the steps from the landing to the level of the 
town, the first object which attracted my attention was a 
chain-gang of negroes at work on the street ; while a number 



436 WILSON'S RAID. 

of Avliite persons stood looking on, evidently enjoying the 
sight, and saying to one another, " That 's the beauty of free- 
dom ! that 's what free nig-gers come to ! " 

On inquiring what the members of the chain-gang had done 
to be punished in this ignominious manner, I got a list of their 
misdemeanors, one of the gravest of which was " using abusive 
lano-uacre towards a white man." Some had transo-ressed cer- 
tain municipal regulations, of which, coming in from the coun- 
try, they were very likely ignorant. One had sold farm produce 
within the town limits, contrary to an ordinance which pro- 
hibits market-men from selling so much as an egg before they 
have reached the market and the market-bell has rung. For 
this offence he had been fined twenty dollars, which being 
unable to pay, he had been put upon the chain. Others had 
been guilty of disorderly conduct, vagrancy, and petty theft, 
which it was of course necessary to punish. But it was a 
singular fact that no white men were ever sentenced to the 
chain-gang, — being, I su})pose, all A'irtuous. 

The battle of Selma was not a favorite topic with the citi- 
zens, most of whom were within the stockade, or behind the 
breastworks, captured by an inferior force of the Yankee 
hivaders. But on the subject of the burning and pillaging 
that ensued they were eloquent. 

A gray-haired old gentleman' said to me: "I was in the 
trenches when Wilson came. Everybody was. I just watched 
both ways, and when I saw how the cat was jumping, I threw 
my musket as fir as I could, dropped down as if I was killed, 
and walked into town atter the Yankees. I stood by my own 
gate, when four drunken fellows came up, slapped me on the 
shoulder, and said, ' This old man was in the stockade, — he 's 
a Rebel !' ' Of course I 'm a Rebel,' I said, ' if I 'm ketched 
in a Rebel trap.' 

" They was taking me away when an officer rode up. ' Old 
man,' says he, ' can you show me where the corn depot is ? ' 
' I reckon I kin, if these gentlemen will let me,' I says. So I 
got off; and when I had showed him the corn he let me go. 

" The fire was first set by our own men : that was in the 



RAIDEES ROBBING A NEGRO. 437 

cotton yards. They blazed up so quick, the Yankees could n't 
have got thar without they went on wires. The next was the 
post-office ; that they burned. The next was a drug store ; 
the other drug store they did n't burn, but they smashed 
everything in it. The Arsenal was owing me and my family 
fifteen hundred dollars, when they destroyed it. 

" They just ruined me. They took from me six cows, four 
mules, fifteen hogs, fifteen hundred pounds of bacon, eight 
barrels of flour, and fifty-five sacks of corn. They took my 
wife's and daughters' clothing to carry away flour in. I saw 
a man take my wife's best dress, empty into it all the flour he 
could tote, tie it up, clap it on his shoulder, and march off". 
Another went off" with an elegantly embroidered petticoat full 
of flour swung on his arm. Another would take a pair of 
ladies' drawers, fill the legs with flour, and trot off* with 'em 
riding straddle of his neck. It made me feel curi's ! It 
made me feel like if I had 'em down in the squirrel woods, I 
could shoot a right smart passel of 'em with a will ! " 

There were one hundred and fifty dwellings burned ; some 
caught from the shops and warehouses, and others were said 
to have been set by marauders. These robbed everybody, 
even the negroes in the streets and the neo;ro-women in their 
bouses. Charles Mencer, a well-known and respectable colored 
man, related to me the following : — 

" I worked here in a saddle-shop, at the time of Wilson's 
raid. I hired my time of my master, and had laid up two 
hundred dollars in gold and silver : I had invested my earn- 
ings in specie, and in two watches, because I knew the Con- 
federacy could n't last. The Yankees came in on Sunday 
evening ; they robbed my house and stole my gold and silver, 
and one of my watches. Four of them stopped me in the 
street, and took my other watch, and my pocket-book, with 
all my Confederate money in it." 

The rest of this man's story possesses a semi-historical in- 
terest. 

" The next Tuesday General Wilson sent for me ; he wanted 
somebody that he could trust to carry despatches for him down 



438 WILSON'S RAID. 

the river to General Canby, and I had been recommended to 
him by some colored people. I said I would take them ; and I 
sewed them up in my vest collar. Then I went to my master, 
and told him there was no chance for work since the Yankees 
had come in, and got a pass from him to go do^'s'n to Mobile 
and find work. Tuesday niglit I started in a canoe, and pad- 
dled down the river. I dodged the Rebel -guard when I could, 
but I was taken and searched twice, and got off by showing 
mv master's pass. I paddled night and day, and got to Mont- 
gomery Hill on Sunday. There I saw Federal troops, and 
went ashore, and delivered myself up to the captain. He took 
me to General Lucas, who sent me with a cavalry escort to 
General Canby at Blakely." 

For this seiwice Mencer was paid three hundred dollars in 
greenbacks, which he had recently invested in a freedmen's 
newspaper, " The Constitutionalist," just started in Mobile. 

The negroes everywhere sympathized with the Federal 
cause, and served it when they could ; but they would seldom 
betray a master who had been kind to them. Many stones 
were told me by the planters, illustrating this fidelity. Hex^e 
is one, related by a gentleman of Lowndes County : — 

" The Yankees, when they left Selma, passed through this 
side of the river, on their way to Montgomeiy. The streams 
were high ; that hindered them, and did us a sight of damage. 
I got the start of 'em, and run off my horses and mules. I 
gave a valise full of valuable papers to my negro boy Arthur, 
and told him to hide it. He took it, and put it in his trunk, — 
threw out his own clothes to hide my property ; for he did n't 
suppose the Yankees would be mean enough to rob niggers. 
But they did : after they robbed my house, they went to the 
negro-quarters, and pilfered them. They found my valise, 
took out my old love-letters, and had a good time reading 'em 
for about an hour. Then they said to Arthur, — 

*' ' You are ^'■our master's confidential servant, a'n't you ? ' 

" ' Yes, sir,' says Arthur, proud of the distinction. 

" ' You know where he has gone with his mules and 
horses ? ' 



DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY. 439 

*' ' Yes, sir, I know all about it.' 

" ' Jump on to this horse, and go and show us where he is, 
and we '11 give you five dollars.' 

" ' I don't betray my master for no five dollars,' says Arthur. 

" ' Then,' says they, ' we '11 shoot you if you won't show 
us ! ' And they put their carbines to his head. 

" He never flinched. ' You can shoot me if you like,' he 
says, ' but I sha'n't betray my master ! ' 

" They were so struck "svith his courage and fidelity that 
they just let him go. So I saved my horses. He don't know 
it, but I 'm going to give that boy a little farm and stock it for 
him." 

Another planter in Lowndes County, an old man, told me 
his story, which will pass as a sample of a hundred others. 

" The Yankees burnt my gin-house and screw. They did n't 
burn my house, for they made it a rule to destroy none but 
unoccupied dwellings. But they took everything from my house 
they wanted, and ruined about everything they did n't want. 
They mixed salt with the sugar, emptied it on the floor, and 
poured vinegar on it. They took a great fancy to a httle 
gi-andson of mine. They gave him a watch, and told him 
they 'd give him a little pony to ride if he would go to camp 
with them. ' I won't go with you,' says he, ' for you 're tak- 
ing away all the flour that we make biscuit of They carried 
him a little ways, when they stopped to burn a school-house. 
' Here ! You must n't burn that ! ' he says ; ' for that 's our 
school-house.' And they did n't burn it." 

" The Confederates used me as bad as the Yankees," said 

Mr. M , a planter whom I saw in Macon County. " They 

had taken twenty-six horses from me, when Wilson came and 
took thirty more. I ran off six of my best horses to a piny 
hill ; and there I got on a high stump, and looked over the 
bushes, to see if the Yankees were coming. I was n't near 
as happy as I 'd been some days in my life ! All I thought of 
was to get my horses off" down one side of the hill, if I saw 
the raiders coming up the other." 

This gentleman had been extensively engaged in the culture 



440 WILSON'S RAID. 

of the grape, — to which, by the way, the soil and climate of 
Alabama are admirably adapted. He had in his cellar twenty 
thousand dollars' worth of wine, when Wilson came. His 
wife caused it all to be destroyed, to prevent it from falling 
into the hands of the soldiers. The last cask was scarcely 
emptied when they arrived. " She thought she 'd sooner deal 

with men sober than drunk," said M . " They treated 

her very well and took nothing from the house they did n't 
need." 

The route of Wilson's cavalry can be traced all the way, by 
the burnt gin-houses with which they dotted tlie country. At 
Montgomery they destroj^ed valuable founderies and machine- 
shops, after causing the fugitive Rebels to burn a hundred 
thousand bales of cotton, with the warehouses which contained 
it. I followed their track through the eastern counties of 
Alabama, and afterwards recrossed it in Georgia, where the 
close of hostilities terminated this, the most extensive and 
destructive raid of the war. 



THE CAPITOL OF THE CONFEDERACY. 441 



CHAPTER LXII. 

NOTES ON ALABAMA. 

Montgomery, .the capital of Alabama, and originally the 
capital of the Confederacy, is a town of broad streets and 
pleasant prospects, built on the rolling summits of liigh bluffs, 
on the left bank of the Alabama, one hundred miles above 
Selma. Before the war it had ten thousand inhabitants. 

Walking up the long slope of the principal street, I came to 
the Capitol, a sightly edifice on a fine eminence. On a near 
view, the walls, which are probably of brick, disguised to imi- 
tate granite, had a cheap look ; and the interior, especially the 
Chamber of Representatives in which the Confederate egg was 
hatched, appeared mean and shabby. This was a plain room, 
with semicircular rows of old desks covered with green baize 
exceedingly worn and foul. The floor carpet was faded and 
ragged. The glaring white-washed walls were offensive to 
the eye. The Corinthian pillars supporting the gallery were 
a cheap imitation of bronze. Over the Speaker's chair hung a 
sad-looking portrait of George Washington, whose solemn eyes 
could not, I suppose, forget the scenes which Treason and 
Folly had enacted there. 

I remained two days at Montgomery ; saw General Swayne 
and other officers of the Bureau ; visited plantations in the 
vicinity ; and conversed with prominent men of the surround- 
ing counties. Both there, and on my subsequent journey 
through the eastern part of the State, I took copious notes, 
which I shall here compress within as small a space as pos- 
sible. 

I have already sketched the class of planters one meets on 
steamboats and railroads. These are generally men who mix 
with the world, read the newspapers, and feel the current of 



442 KOTES ON" ALABAMA. 

progressive ideas. Off the main routes of travel, you meet with 
a different class, — men who have never emerged from their 
obscurity, who do not read the newspapers, and who have not 
yet learned that tlie world moves. Many of them were anti- 
secessionists ; which fact renders them often tlie most trouble- 
some people our officers now have to deal with. Claiming to 
be Union men, they cannot understand why their losses, 
whether of slaves or other property, which the war occasioned, 
should not be immediately made up to them by the govern- 
ment. 

As in Mississippi and Tennessee, the small farmers in the 
Alabama legislature were the bitterest negro-haters in that 
body; while tlie more liberal-minded and enlightened mem- 
bers were too frequently controlled by a back-country con- 
stituency, whom they feared to offend by voting for measures 
which ignorance and obstinacy were sure to disapprove. 

In Alabama, as in all the Southern States, the original 
secessionists were generally Democrats and the Union men 
Old Line Whigs. The latter opposed the revolution until it 
swept them away ; when they often went into the war with 
a zeal which shamed the shirking policy of many who were 
very hot in bringing it on, and very cool in keeping out of it. 
I found them now the most hopeful men of the South. If a 
planter said to me, " I 'm going to raise a big crop of cotton 
this year, — my negroes are working finely," — I needed no 
other test that he belonged to this class. 

Concerning the loyalty of the people I shall give the testi- 
mony of a very intelligent young man of Chambers County, — 
whose story will in other respects prove instructive. 

" I enlisted in the Confederate Army for one year ; and 
before my time was up I was conscripted for two years ; then, 
before these expired, I was conscrij^ted for two m.ore. I was 
made })risoner at Forest Hill, in Virginia, and taken to Harris- 
burg, in Pennsylvania. At the end of the war I was paroled. 
I knew that my people were ruined, and all my property gone. 
That consisted in twelve slaves ; their labor supported me 
before the war, but now I had nothing but my own hands to 



A CONVERTED REBEL. 443 

depend upon. I made up my mind to stay where I was and 
go to work. I hired out to a farmer for six dollars a month. 
I had never done a stroke of labor in my life, and it came hard 
to me at first. But I soon got used to it. 

" One day a mercliant of Harrisburg was riding by, and he 
asked me some questions which I answered. A few days after 
lie came that way again, got into conversation with me, and 
proposed to me to go into his store. He offered me eighteen 
dollars a mouth. I said to him, ' You are very kind, sir, but 
you probably do not know who I am, or you would not want 
me : I am a Rebel soldier, just out of prison.' He said he 
believed I was an honest fellow, and would like to try me. I 
went into his store, and after the first month he raised my 
wages to thirty dollars. After the second month, he gave me 
fort}', and after the third month he gave me fifty. I had been 
a wild boy before the Avar ; I had plenty of money witli no 
restrictions upon my spending it. But I tell you I was never 
so happy in my life as when I was at work for my living in 
that store. jMy employer liked me, and trusted me, and I 
liked the people. 

" I have now come home on a visit. My relations and 
neighbors are very much incensed against me because I tell 
them plainly what I think of the Yankees. I know now that 
we were all in the wrong, and that the North was right, about 
the war ; and I tell them so. I have met with the most in- 
sulting treatment on this account. They feel the bitterest ani- 
mosity against the government, and denounce and abuse the 
Yankees, and call me a Yankee, as the worst name they can 
give me. To you, a Northern man, I suppose they won't say 
much ; but they talk among themselves and to me." 

" How large a proportion of your people express such senti- 
ments?" 

" Well, sir, there are fifteen hundred voting men in the 
county ; and all but about a hundred and eighty feel and talk 
the way I tell you. They can't be reconciled to living under 
the old government, and those who are able are preparing to 
emigrate. A fund has already been raised to send agents to 
select lands for them in Mexico." 



444 NOTES ON ALABAMA. 

~i 

" Did you find in the North any such animosity existing 
towards the people of the South ? " 

" Very httle ; and there was this difference : In the North 
it is only a few ignorant people, of the poorer class, who hate 
the South : I believe the mass of the Northern people, while 
they hate treason and rebellion, have only kind feelings to- 
wards the Southern people. But with us it is the wealthy 
and influential class that hates the North, while only the poor 
whites and negroes have any loyalty at heart. I wish," he 
added, " that for every Northern man now settling in the 
South, a Southern man would go into business at the North, 
and see for himself, as I have done, just what sort of people 
and institutions we have all our lives been taught to misunder- 
stand and slander." 

The editors of the southern half of the State were nearly 
all disloyal, judged by their prints. The same may be said 
of the ministers of the aristocratic churches, judged by their 
words and works. 

There is a wide difference between the people of Northern 
and Southern Alabama. The inhabitants of many of the 
upper counties were as loyal as those of East Tennessee. In 
some it was necessary for the Davis government to maintain 
a cavalry force in order to keep the people in subjection. Such 
a county was Randolph, whpse inhabitants were as strongly 
opposed to secession, as those of Chambers County, its next 
neighbor on the South, were in favor of it. 

" The commanders discriminated in their foraging against 
the Union peojjle. The fact that a man was absent in the 
service of the United States, or was opposed to the rebellion, 
was deemed a sufficient warrant to take the last piece of meat 
from his smoke-house, and the last ear of corn and bundle of 
fodder from his barns, leaving his family to starve. Randolph 
alone furnished nearly five hundred men who actually took 
up arms in the service of the United States, enlisting in Avhat- 
ever organization they found convenient as they made their 
escape from the Rebel conscripting officers into our lines. 
Their graves are upon every battle-field, attesting their bra- 
very, their patriotism, and their sacrifices." 



destitutio:n". 445 

Thus wrote, in a private letter to General Swayne, Lieu- 
tenant R. T. Smith, himself a loyal Alabamian who served in 
the Union army. The county was impoverished by the ab- 
sence of its men in both armies, and by the troopers who 
preyed upon it. There was still great suiFering at the time 
of my visit. 

" Much destitution also exists," said the lieutenant, " among 
the families of the late Rebels ; for the soldiery, who had 
come in the beginning partly at their instance, consumed 
their substance when the means of the Union people were 
exhausted. Like Actseon, they were eaten by their own 
dogs." 

" It is a common, an every-day sight in Randolph County, 
to see women and children, most of whom were formerly in 
good circumstances, begging for bread from door to door. 
They must have immediate help, or perish. Fifteen hundred 
families, embracing five thousand persons, are in need of im- 
mediate aid." This was in January, 1866. 

The destitution here described was not confined to a por- 
tion of the country, nor was it a new thing. In 1863, the 
shortness of the crops, the depreciation of the currency, and 
the consequent high prices of provisions, produced a famine 
among the poorer classes. The families of soldiers, fighting 
the battles of a confederacy which paid them in worthless 
paper, were left to suffer the exti'emes of want, while many, 
who helped to bring on the war, were growing rich by specu- 
lating upon the misery it occasioned. In Mobile there were 
insurrections of women, driven by starvation to acts of public 
violence. The State was finally awakened to the necessity of 
ameliorating these sufferings ; and during the last year of the 
war it fed with meal and salt one hundred and forty thousand 
white paupers. 

This charity, inherited, in a manner, by the government 
which feeds the enemy it subjugates, was continued, after the 
war had closed, with the aid of the United States Commis- 
sary Department. At the same time the emancipation of four 
hundred and fifty thousand slaves, — nearly half the popula- 



446 NOTES ON ALABAMA. 

tion of the State, — threw a large number of Wack paupers 
upon the community. 

In these circumstances, the Freedmen's Bureau proved an 
instrument of inestimable good. Its mediatory and organizing 
influence prevented outbreaks, and saved thousands from per- 
ishinff. It assumed the care of homeless blacks and of white 
refugees. It colonized the former upon abandoned lands, and 
thence supplied many plantations with labor. 

In the month of August, 1865, there were at one of these 
colonies thirty-four hundred freedmen. " I haA'e been sending 
paupers to it ever since," said General Swayne ; " and there 
are now but one hundred and fifty persons there." This was 
in January. At that time the Bureau was feeding less than 
twenty-five hundred blacks, and the number was rapidly 
dimjnishing. 

No freedmen's courts had been established by the Bureau 
in Alabama. " We had not officers enough to establish more 
than ten courts," General Sw^ayne told me. " And when 
those were withdrawn, the negro would have been left de- 
fenceless. I therefore preferred to educate the civil courts to 
do the freedmen justice." He had displayed considerable 
diplomatic skill in securing the cooperation of the Conven^ 
tion, and getting an ordinance passed by it, which author- 
ized civil officers to try freedmen's cases and receive negro 
testimony. If an officer failed of his duty towards the blacks, 
his commission as an agent of the Bureau was revoked. Gen- 
eral Swayne thought the system was working well ; but he 
confessed that these officers required close watching ; and 
some of his special agents, who came more directly in con- 
tact with the people, and with the actual crude state of 
affairs, while he saw them too much perhaps through the at- 
mosphere of influential State officials, assured me that the 
justice obtained by the freedmen from these courts was but 
scanty. " At the outset," said one, " they meet with obsta- 
cles. If they enter a complaint, they must give bail to ap- 
pear as witnesses, or be lodged in jail. As no white man will 
give bail for a negro to appear as a witness against a white 



COTTON. 447 

man, and as they don't fancy lying perhaps weeks in jail in 
order to be heard, they prefer to suffer wrong rather than seek 
redress." 

There were but two freedmen's schools in the State, one at 
Montgomery, and another at Mobile, with an aggregate of 
fifteen teachers and nine hundred pupils. 

Everywhere I heard complaints of the demoralization of the 
people occasioned by the war. There were throughout the 
South organized bands of thieves. In Alabama, cotton-steal- 
ing had become a safe and profitable business. I was told of 
men, formerly respectable, and who still held their heads high 
in society, who were known to have made large fortunes by it. 
These men employ negroes to do the work, because negroes 
cannot ^nve leo;al evidence against a white man. During the 
last three months of 1865, it was estimated that, on the line 
of the Mobile and Ohio Railroad, ten thousand bales of cotton 
had been stolen. 

Crimes of every description, especially upon the property 
and persons of the freedraen, were very common. General 
Swayne told me that he stood greatly in need of a force of 
cavalry, without which it was almost impossible to arrest the 
offenders. 

There was every prospect of a good cotton crop the present 
year. Since the invention of the spinning-jenny by Ark- 
wright, and of the gin by Whitney, the culture of this great 
staple has received no such impulse as the recent high prices 
have given it. The planters were taking courage, the freed- 
men were at work, and a large amount of Northern capital 
was finding investment in the State. Even the poor whites, 
who never before would consent to degrade themselves by 
industrious labor in the field, seemed inspired by the general 
activity, and many of them, for the first time in their lives, 
were preparing to raise a few bales of cotton. Labor was not 
abundant. " Our best young men went oft' with the Yankee 
army ; and our best girls followed the officers." Men of sense 
and reputation had not much difficulty, however, in securing 
laborers. " When I got all ready to hire," said one, " I just 



448 NOTES ON ALABAIMA. 

turned about four hundred liogs into a field near tlie road. 
Every freednian that came that way stopped ; and in a week 
I had as many as I wanted. Tliey all like to hire out where 
there is plenty of pork." Others, to fill their quota of hands, 
were paying the fines of stout negroes on the chain-gangs, and 
bailing those who were lying in jail. 

All sorts of contracts were entered into ; and various devices 
were used to stimulate • the energies of the freedmen. Some 
paid wages ; some gave a share in the crop ; and I heard of 
planters who defrayed all expenses, and gave five cents a 
I pound for the cotton raised on their lands. One man, who 
hired sixty frcjedmen at moderate wages, divided them into six 
gangs of ten each, and offered a premium of three hundred 
dollars to the gang which should produce the greatest number 
of bales. 

General Swayne estimated that there were five thousand 
Northern men in the State, engaged in planting and trading. 
Many of them were late army-officers. Business in the prin- 
cipal towns had been paying large profits ; and Northern mer- 
chants, who purchased their goods at the North, were, not- 
withstanding the popular prejudice against them, enabled to 
compete with, and undersell, native traders who bought in 
smaller quantities and at second hand. 

The hilly northern part of- Alabama falls off" gradually 
through the rolling prairies and alluvial bottoms of the central, 
to the low, flat southern portion of the State. Much of this 
latter region is sandy and barren, producing little besides poor 
whites and sweet potatoes. There are fertile bottom lands, 
however, adapted to the sugar-cane ; and rice has also been 
successfully cultivated near the coast. 

All through the lower half of the State, the long tree-moss 
grows with great luxuriance. It flourishes in a warm, moist 
climate ; and the forests of the entire Southern country, below 
thirty-three degrees, are festooned by it. It likes the dank 
and heavy shade of swamps, which it darkens still more with 
its pendant shrouds. In favorable localities it grows to a great 
length, till its long-fibred masses appear dripping from, the 



LONG MOSS.— AKTESIAN WELLS. 449 

trees. One can imagine the effect Avlien the great winds move 
through the woods, and to tlieir solemn roaring is added the 
weird, luiearthly aspect of a myriad gloomy banners, waving 
and beckoning from every limb. 

Gathered by means of hooks attached to long poles, and 
seasoned by a simple process, this moss becomes a valuable ar- 
ticle of merchandise, being principally used in the manufacture 
of mattresses. I saw many bales of it going down the rivers 
to New Orleans, INIobile, and Savannah. Its color on the 
boughs is a dull greenish gray ; but when prepared for mar- 
ket, it resembles black crinkled horse-hair. A gentleman of 
Charleston told me that just before the war he tried the ex- 
periment of sending a bale of it to France, where it was not 
permitted to pass the custom-house until his factor had obtained 
from him a properly attested certificate, showing that it was 
to be taxed, not as hair, but as a vegetable substance. The 
French called it " vegetable horse-hair." 

The best cotton lands of Alabama lie between tho Alabama 
and Tombigbee rivers, where a bale to the acre is the usual 
yield. The valleys of the Black Wari'ior and some lesser 
streams are scarcely inferior. 

The general fertility of the grpat central portion of the 
State is offset by two or three disadvantages. One is the mud 
of the " black lime land," which, in the rainy season, is often of 
such depth and tenacity that travel on the roads by means of 
wheeled vehicles is impracticable. A greater inconvenience is 
the scarcity of wells. In the northei'n portion of the State 
good water is abundant ; but in other parts plantations aye 
supplied only by means of house and field cisterns. In some 
towns excellent Artesian wells have been constructed ; a few 
reaching a depth of a thousand feet, and throwing water in 
sufficient volume and force to carry machinery. At Selma 
there were lately two very good flowing wells, but on an at- 
tempt being made to bore a third, a rock was split, which in- 
jured materially the condition of the two first. In the large 
public square at Montgomery, the broad circular basin of the 
Artesian well, surrounded by an iron railing on p, stone curb, 
29 



450 Is^OTES ON ALABAMA. 

visited by throngs of citizens, descending the steps, dipping up 
the water, or catching it as it gushes from tlie spout, and fill- 
ing their pails and casks, forms an interesting feature of the 
place. 

In the northern part of Alabama there are beautiful and 
fertile valleys adapted to the culture of both cotton and grain. 
On the other hand, there are hills unfit for cultivation. Be- 
tween these two extremes thei^e are upland ti-acts of moderate 
fertility, ca])able of producing a third or a (puirter of a bale to 
the acre. This is the region of small farms and few negroes. 

The climate throughout the elevated portions of the State is 
healthy and delightful. On the low river bottoms there is 
much suffering from fevers and mosquitoes. 

The common-school system of Alabama is very imperfect. 
The wealthy planters send their children to private schools, 
and object to taxation for the education of the children of the 
poor. The poor, on the other hand, take no interest in schools, 
to which they will not send their children as long as money is 
to be paid for tuition, or as long as there is cotton to pick and 
wood to cut at home. The isolation of the inhabitants on 
plantations, or in widely scattered log-cabins, and the presence 
of an uneducated race forming nearly one half the population, 
have been great obstacles in the way of popular education. 

Alabama has a common-school fundy derived principally 
from lands, comprising the sixteenth section in each township, 
given for educational purposes by the United States. This 
fund has never been consolidated, but each township enjoys 
the income, by sale or rent, of its own allotted portion. The 
system works badly. The sixteenth section is valueless in 
many of the townships where both the land and the inhabi- 
tants are poor, and where there is consequently most need of 
educational assistance ; while in townships occupied by planters 
who have orown rich on the richness of the soil, and who need 
.no such assistance, it has generally proved very valuable. Mr. 
Taylor, the State Superintendent of Schools, told me that in 
one of these wealthier townships, in Montgomery County, 
there was for some vears but a single child to wdiose education 



RAILROADS AXD DEPOTS. 451 

the sixteontli-section fund could be properly a])plled. She was 
a girl ; and the independent planters performed their duty 
frtitlifully in her case. They sent her to a boarding-school, 
where she received a fashionable education ; and, when she 
came to marry, furnished her wedding-outfit, and presented 
her with a piano. 

Alabama is comparatively a new State. Admitted into the 
Union in 1819, her rise in importance has kept pace steadily 
with the progress of modern cotton cultivation. It sounds 
strange to hear planters still young refer to their experiences 
in the early daj-s of cotton in regions which are now celebrated 
for its production. " I came to Montgomery County in 1834," 
said one. " I raised my first cotton crop in 1836. I had nine 
negroes, and I made a bale to the hand. They did n't know 
how to pick it. So I hired thirty Indian girls to pick, — as 
handsome young creatures as ever you saw. Cotton was then 
eighteen cents a pound. The Indian war disturbed us some ; 
but I and a dozen more settlers went out and killed more 
Indians than all Scott's army. I have now two large planta- 
tions ; this year I work a hundred and ten hands, and fifty- 
five mules and horses, on thirteen hundred acres of cotton 
and five hundred of corn ; and I intend to make more money 
than ever before." 

The principal railroads of the State Avere all in running 
condition ; although the rolling stock was generally shabby 
and scarce. The Montgomery and West Point Road, Avhich 
Wilson's raiders damaged to the amount of several millions, 
had been temporarily repaired. Depots were never plenty in 
the South, and where our forces had passed, not one was left ; 
— a great inconvenience, especially to single gentlemen, going 
to take the train at two or three o'clock in the morning, find- 
ino; the cars locked and guarded until the ladies should all be 
seated, and compelled to wait perhaps an hour, in the cold, for 
them to be opened. 



452 I>^ AND ABOUT ATLANTA. 



CHAPTER LXIII. 

IN AND ABOUT ATLANTA. 

The railroad runs eastward from Montgomery, forks at 
Opelika, and enters Georgia by two divei'gent routes, — the 
south branch crossing the Chattahoocliee at Columbus, and the 
north branch at West Point. 

Wilson, the Raider, paid his respects to both these roads. 
The main body of his troops proceeded to Columbus, (one of 
the principal towns of Georgia,) which they carried by as- 
sault, with a loss of but thirty men, capturing fifteen hundred 
prisoners, twenty-four pieces of artillery, and immense mili- 
tary stores. At the same time Lagrange's Brigade took West 
Point. These were the closing battles of the great war of the 
rebellion. Pushing on towards Macon, Wilson's advance was 
met, not by bloody opposition, but b}* a flag of truce an- 
nouncing the surrender of Lee and the armistice between 
Sherman and Johnston. 

Concei'uing our loss at West Point I was not able to obtain 
very exact information. A citizen, who claimed to have been 
in the fight, said to me, " We had seven men killed, and we 
just slaughtered over three hundred Yankees." A negro 
said : " I saw five dead Yankees, and if there was any more 
nobody knows what Avas done with 'em." A returned Con- 
federate soldier, who regarded with great contempt the little 
affair the citizens bragged so much about, said it Avas no fight 
at all ; the militia gave up the fort almost Avithout a struggle ; 
and tliere were not over a dozen men killed on both sides. 
The fort was situated on a high hill ; and one old man, Avho 
was in it, told me they could not hold it because they could n't 
use the guns ^ectively, — r- they " could n't elcA^ate 'em down 
enough/' 



RUINS, RUBBISH, AND MISERY. 453 

The Yankees had the credit of behaving very well at West 
Point. " They were going to burn the railroad depot, full of 
rolling stock ; but a lady told 'em that would set her house, so 
they just run the cars off down the track, over a hundred of 
'em, and fired 'em there," — the black ruins remaining to 
attest the fact. 

Leavino- West Point at noon I reached Atlanta at seven 
o'clock in the evening. It was a foggy night; the streets 
were not lighted, the hotels were full, and the mud, through 
which I tramped from one to the other, with a dark guide and 
a very dark lantern, was ankle deep on the crossings. I was 
at length fortunate enough to find lodgings, with a clergyman 
and a cotton-speculator, in an ancient tavern-room, where we 
were visited all night by troops of rats, scampering across the 
floor, rattling newspapers, and capering over our beds. In 
the morning, it was discovered that the irreverent rogues had 
stolen the clergyman's stockings. 

A sun-bricrht mornino; did not transmute the town into a 
place of very great attractiveness. Everywhere were rums 
and rubbish, mud and mortar and misery. The burnt streets 
were rapidly rebuilding ; but in the mean while hundreds of 
the inhabitants, white and black, rendered homeless by the 
destruction of the city, were living in wretched hovels, which 
made the suburbs look like a fantastic encampment of gypsies 
or Indians. Some of the negro huts were covered entirely 
Avith racged fragments of tin-roofing from the burnt govern- 
ment and railroad buildings. Others were constructed partly 
of these irregular blackened patches, and partly of old boards, 
with roofs of huge, warped, slouching shreds of tin, kept from 
blowing away by stones placed on the top. Notwithstanding 
the ingenuity displayed in piecing these rags together, they 
formed but a miserable shelter at the best. " In dry weather, 
it's good as anybody's houses. But they leaks right bad when 
it rains ; then we have to pile our things up to keep 'em dry." 
So said a colored mother of six children, whose husband was 
killed " fighting for de Yankees," and who supported her fam- 
ily of little ones by washing. " Sometimes I gits along toler- 



454 m A]^D ABOUT ATLANTA. 

able ; sometimes rigiit slim ; but dat 's cle way wid everybody ; 
— times is powerful hard right now." 

Every business block in Atlanta was burned, excejit one. 
The railroad machine-sho])s, the founderies, the immense roll- 
ing-mill, the tent, ]nstol, gun-carriage, shot-and-shell factories,* 
and storehouses, of the late Confederacy, disappeared in flames 
and explosions. Half a mile of the pi'incipal street was de- 
stroyed. Private residences remained, with a few exceptions. 
The wooden houses of the suburbs had been already torn 
down, and their materials used to construct quarters for Sher- 
man's men. The African Methodist Episcopal Church, built 
by the colored people with their hard earnings, and viewed 
by them with as much pride and satisfaction as the Jews felt 
in the contemplation of the great Temple at Jerusalem, was 
also demolished by our soldiers, — at the instigation, it is said, 
of a white citizen livino; near, who thouoht the neo-ro's relio- 
ious shoutings a nuisance. 

" When I came back in May," said a refugee, " the city 
was nothing but piles of brick and ruins. It did n't seem it 
could ever be cleared. But in six weeks new blocks began 
to spring up, till now you see more stores actually in ojieration 
than we ever had before." 

The new business blocks were mostly one-story structures, 
with cheap temporary roofs, designed to be rebuilt and raised 
in more prosperous times. Nine stores of this description had 
just been put up by a Connecticut man ; each costing three 
thousand dollars, and renting for twenty-five hundred. " He 
run a rollino;-mill for the Confederate Government durino- the 
war ; sold out when Sherman was coming ; called himself a 
good Union man ; — a mighty shrewd fellow!" said one who 
knew him. 

Here and there, between the new buildings, were rows of 
shanties used as stores, and gaps containing broken walls and 
heaps of rubbish. 

Rents were enormous. Fifteen and twenty dollars a month 
were charged for huts which a respectable farmer would hardly 
consider good enough for his swine. One man had crowded 



DESTITUTION AND SUFFERING. 455 

into liis backyard five of these little tenements, ^^■\\\c\\ rented 
for fifteen dollars a month each, and a very small brick house 
that let for thirty dollars. Other speculators were permitting 
tlie construction, on their premises, of houses that were to be 
occupied rent-free, for one year, by the poor fomllies that built 
them, and afterwards to revert to the owners of the land. 

The destitution among both white and black refugees was 
very great. Many of the whites had lost everything by the 
war ; and the negroes that were run off by their masters in 
advance of Sherman's army, had returned to a desolate place, 
with notiiino; but the rags on their backs. As at nearly every 
other town of any note in the South which I visited, the small- 
pox was raging at Atlanta, chiefly among the blacks, and the 
sufi'ering poor whites. 

I stopped to talk with an old man building a fence before 
the lot containing the ruins of his burnt house. He said : 
*' The Yankees did n't generally burn private dwellings. It 's 
my opinion these were set by our own citizens, that remained 
after Sherman's order that all women who had relatives in the 
Southern army should go South, and all males must leave 
the city except them that would work for government. I put 
for Chattanooga. My house was plundered, and I reckon, 
burnt, by my own neighbors, — for I 've found some of my 
furniture in their houses. Some that stayed acted more honor- 
ably ; they put out fires that had been set, and saved both 
houses and property. My family is now living in that shebang 
there. It was formerly my stable. The weather-boards had 
been ripped off", but I fixed it up the best I could to put my 
little 'uns in till we can do better." 

Another old man told me the story of his family's suffer- 
ings, with tears running down his cheeks. " During the bat- 
tle of July, I had typhoid fever in my house. One of my 
daughters died, and my other three were down with it. The 
cemeteries were being shelled, and I had to take out my dead 
child and bury her hastily in my backyard. My house was 
in range of the shells ; and there my daughters lay, too sick 
to be moved." His description of those terrible days I shall 



456 IN AND ABOUT ATLANTA. 

not repeat. At length his neighbors came with ambulances, 
and the sick daughters Avere removed. They were scarcely 
cut of the house when a shell passed through it. 

Walking out, one Sunday afternoon, to visit the fortifica- 
tions, I stopped to look at a negro's horse, which had been 
crippled by a nail in his foot. While I was talking Avith the 
owner, a white man and two negroes, who had been sitting by 
a fire in an open rail-cabin close by, conversing on terms of 
perfect equality, came out to take part in the consultation, 
around the couch of the sick beast. One proffered one rem- 
edy ; another, another. 

" If ye had some tare," said the white man (meaning tar) ; 
— " open his huf, and bile tare and pour int' it." 

His lank frame and slouching dress, — his sallow visage, with 
its sickly, indolent expression, — his lazy, spiritless movements, 
and the social intimacy that appeared to exist between him 
and the negroes, indicated that he belonged to the class known 
as " Sand Hillers " in South Carolina, " Clay-eaters " in 
North Carolina, " Crackers " in Georgia, and " white trash " 
and " poor whites " everywhere. Among all the individuals 
of this unfortunate and most uninteresting; class, whom I 
have seen, I do not remember a specimen better worth describ- 
ing. I give his story in his own words. 

He told me his name was Jesse Wade. " I lived down 
in Cobb," (that is, Cobb County,) — seating himself on the 
neap of the negro's wagon, and mechanically scraping the 
•nud from it M'ith his thumb-nail. " I was a Union man, I 
was that, like my daddy befo'e me. Thar was no use me bein' 
a fule 'case my neighbors was. The Rebel army treated us a 
heap wus 'n Sherman did. I refugeed, — left everything keer 
o' my w^ife. I had four bales o' cotton, and the Rebs burnt 
the last bale. I had hogs, and a mule, and a boss, and they 
tuk all. They did n't leave my wife narry bedquilt. When 
they 'd tuk M'hat they wanted, they put her out the house and 
sot fire to 't. Narry one o' my boys fit agin the Union ; they 
was conscripted with me, and one night we went out on guard 
together, we did, and jest put for the Yankees. Ail the men 



JESSE WADE'S STORY. 457 

that had a little property went in for the wa', but the po' people 
was agin it. Sherman was up yer to Kenesaw Mountain then, 
and I left, I did, to jine him." 

Wade claimed to iiave acted as a scout, and referred me to 
the quartermaster : " This one that 's yer," (the quartermaster 
at Atlanta,) " you ax him what Wade done, if you don't reckon 
I tell the trutli." He pronounced the division of tlie Federal 
forces a great stroke of strategy. " Atter we split the army, 
the Rebels could n't hold us no hack." 

He was very poor. " I 've got two bosses and a wagon, 
and I should n't bave them if Sherman bad n't gin 'em tu me." 
He held up his feet, and looked at his toes protruding through 
great gaps in bis shoes. " I kain't git money enough to buy 
me a new pair, to save my life." 

*' I beat ye, then," said the owner of the crippled horse, 
showing a very good pair of boots. 

^^You 're drayin'," said Wade. " Jhaul. I 'm gittin' wood 
to the halves. The owner 's as strong an old secessioner as 
ever lived. I kain't make but tu loads a day, and one 's mine, 
and one 's the feller's ; I give one load for t' other. Takes me 
three loads to git a cord ; I git a dollar and a half, and some- 
time tu, for a load, I 've got one boy that helps, — he 's about 
as high as hand boy standin' bander," (yond' boy standing 
yonder,) — pointing to a negro lad of fourteen. 

I asked Wade how old he Avas. " I 'm in my fifty-one year 
old," he replied ; " and thar 's eight on us in the family, and 
tu bosses." 

I inquired concerning education in his county. "Tbar 's a 
heap o' po' men in Cobb that kain't read nor write. I 'm one. 
I never went to skule narry time, and I was alluz so tight run 
I never could send my chil'n, only 'tween crap time." 

" What do you mean by ' Hiveen crap time ' .^ " 

*' When I 'd laid by my crap," (that is, stopped hoeing it, as 
corn,) " till fodder pullin'. I alluz had to make a little cotton, 
to keep up. I could alluz rent land befo'e the wa', by givin' 
half to the owners, — them a pound o' cotton, and me a pound 
o' cotton ; them a load and me a load. That 's tu much ; but 



458 IN AND ABOUT ATLANTA 

I kain't git it for that now. You might as well try to git their 
eyes as their land." 

Wade's theory of reconstruction was simple, and expressed 
in few words : " We should tuk the land, as we did the nig- 
gers, and split it, and gin part to the niggers and part to me 
and t' other Union fellers. They 'd have had to submit to it, 
as they did to the niggers." I also found the freedmen, who 
had gathered about us, unanimously of this opinion. 

" Wade," I said, " you 're a candid man : now tell me 
which you think will do the most work, — a white man, or a 
nigger? " 

" The nigger," said Wade, surprised at so simple a question. 

" Do you mean to say that one of these black men will do 
more work than you ? " 

" Yes, sho'e," (sure.) 

" What 's the reason of that ? " 

" 'Case they was alius put mo'e at it." 

He went on to complain that he could n't always get pay 
for the work he did. " A man owes me money for wood. If 
he don't pay me soon, I '11 take a stick and beat it out on him." 

" That '11 be to work for it twict, and not git it then," ob- 
served a negro, very wisely ; and I trust Wade was persuaded 
not to try the stick. 

" Ought to have such laws yer as dey has up in Tennessee," 
said another negro. " Dar you 'd git yer money ! Laws is 
strick in Tennessee ! Ebery man chalks a line up dar. A man 
owes you money, de probo' marshal make him toe de line. I 's 
been round, since de wa' busted, and I han't seen no whar 
laws like dey got up dar in Tennessee." 

By this time a large number of negroes had assembled on 
the spot, dressed in their Sunday clothes ; and such an ani- 
mated discussion of their political rights ensued, that, con- 
cluding I had strayed by mistake into an out-door convention 
of the freed people, I quietly withdrew, — followed by my 
friend Wade, who wished to know if I could accommodate 
him to a " chaw of tobacker." 

Atlanta is the centre of a "perfect crow's-foot of railroads," 



RAILROADS AND BANKS. 459 

■which have 2;iven it its business and military importance. The 
Western and Atlantic Road, connecting it with Chattanooga, 
forms a main trunk, with tributaries running into it from all 
parts of the North and West, and ^\;ith branches from Atlanta 
runnino- to all parts of the South. This road was constructed 
bj the State, which in past years derived from it a large rev- 
enue. The war left it in a bad condition, with a dilapidated 
track, and merely temporary bridges in place of those which 
had been destroyed ; — without machine-shops, or materials 
for the repair of Avhat little remained of the old, worn-out 
rolling-stock. A purchase of four hundred thousand dollars' 
worth of indispensable stock from the government, had sufficed 
to put it in operation, and it was contributing something, by 
its earnings, towards the great outlay still necessary to refur- 
nish it and place it in thorough repair. The other railroads in 
the State, built by private companies, were nearly all doing well, 
by reason of the great amount of freight and travel passing 
over them. Those destroyed by Sherman belonged to corpo- 
rations which could best afford to rebuild them ; and work 
upon them was going forward with considerable vigor. All 
these i-oads had heavy claims against the Confederate Govern- 
ment ; some of them amounting to several millions. 

Georgia, before the war, had over twelve hundred miles of 
railroad in operation, forming the most extensive and complete 
system south of Tennessee and Virginia, — Alabama having 
but five hundred miles, and Mississippi seven hundred. 

The best of the old Georgia banks were connected with the 
railroads. The bills of the Georgia Railroad and Banking 
Company were still worth, after the war had swept over the 
State, ninety-five per cent, of their par value. Those of the 
Central Railroad and Banking Company were selling for 
about the same. The issues of the other banks Avere Avorth 
from five to seventy-five per cent. ; the stock being sacrificed. 



460 DOWN m MIDDLE GEORGIA. 



CHAPTER LXIV. 

DOWN IN MIDDLE GEORGIA. 

As my first view of Atlanta was had on a dismal night, (if 
view it could be called,) so my last impression of it was re- 
ceived on a foggy morning, which showed me, as I sat in the 
cars of the Macon train, waiting at the depot, groups of rain- 
drenched negroes around out-door fires ; the dimly seen trees 
of the Park ; tall ruins looming through the mist ; Masonic 
Hall standing alone (having escaped destruction) ; squat 
wooden buildings of recent, hasty construction, beside it ; 
windrows of bent railroad iron by tlie track ; piles of brick ; 
a small mountain of old bones from the battle-fields, foul and 
•wet with the drizzle ; a heavy cofiin-box, marked " glass," on 
the platform ; with mud and litter all around. 

A tide of negro eniigi-ation Avas at that time flowing west- 
ward, from the comparatively ban-en hills of Northern Georgia 
to the rich cotton phintations of the Mississippi. Every day 
anxious planters from the Great Valley were to be met with, 
inquiring for unemployed freedmen, or returning home with 
colonies of laborers, who had been persuaded to quit their old 
haunts by tlie promise of double wages in a new country. 
Georgia planters, who raise but a bale of cotton on three, 
four, or five acres, could not compete with their more wealthy 
Western neighbors : tliey higgled at paying their freedmen six 
or seven dollars a month, while Arkansas and Mississippi men 
stood ready to give twelve and fifteen dollars, and the expenses 
of the journey. As it cost no more to transport able-bodied 
youno" men and women than the old and the feeble, the former 
were generally selected and the latter left behind. Thus it 
•happened that an unusually large proportion of poor families 
remained about Atlanta and other Georgia towns. 



SCEXE AT THE DEPOT. 4G1 

There were two such families huddled that morning under 
the open shed of the depot. They claimed that they had 
been hired by a planter, who had brought them thus far, and, 
for some reason, abandoned them. They had been at the 
depot a Aveek or more, sleeping in piles of old rags, and sub- 
sisting on rations issued to them by the Bureau : stolid-looking 
mothers, hardened by field-labor, smoking short black pipes ; 
and older children tending younger ones, feeding them out of 
tin cups, and rocking them to sleep in their arms. It was 
altogether a pitiful sight, — although, but for the rain which 
beat in upon them, I might have thought their freely venti- 
lated lodgings preferable to some of the tavern-rooms I had 
lately slept in. But to me the most noticeable feature of the 
scene was the spirit manifested towards these poor creatures 
by spectators of my own color. 

" That baby 's going to die," said one man. " Half your 
children w^ill be dead before spring." 

" How do you like freedom ? " said another. 

" Niggers are fated," said a third. " About one out of fifty 
will take care of himself; the rest are gone up." 

" The Southern people are the niggers' best friends," re- 
sumed the first speaker. " They feel a great deal of sympathy 
for them. There are many who give them a heap of good 
advice when they leave them." 

Good advice is cheap ; but nobody gave these homeless ones 
anything else, nor even that, — Avith a single exception : there 
was one who gave them kind words and money, but he was a 
Yankee. 

The remarks of the ladies in the car were equally edifying. 

*' How much better they were off with somebody to take 
care of 'em ! " 

" Oh dear, yes ! I declare it makes me hate an Abolition- 
ist I" 

" The government ouo;ht to have jriven them houses ! " — 
(sneeringly.) " If I had seven children to take care of, I 'd 
go back and sell 'em to my old master." 

" Do see that little bit of a baby ! it 's a-kicking and scream- 



462 DOWN IN MIDDLE GEOKGIA. 

ing ! I declare, it 's white ! one of the young Federals', I 
reckon." 

From Atlanta, until within about twenty-five miles of Ma- 
con, the raih'oad runs upon a ridge, from which the waters of 
the country How each way, — those of the west side, through 
the Flint River and the Appalachicola to the Gulf; those of 
the east, through the Ocmulgee and Altamaha to the Atlan- 
tic. The soil of this ridge is sandy, with a mixture of red 
clay ; nuich of it producing little besides oaks and pines. The 
doorways of the log-huts and shabby framed houses we passed, 
were crowded with black, yellow, and sallow-wliite faces, — 
women, cliildrcn, and slatternly, barefoot girls, Avith long, un- 
combed hair on their shoulders, — staring at the train. The 
country is better, a little back from the railroad, as is fre- 
quently the case in the South. 

Macon, at the head of steamboat navigation on the Ocmul- 
gee River, and the most important interior town in the State, 
is a phice of broad, pleasant streets, with a sandy soil which 
exempts it from mud. It had in 1860 eight thousand inhabi- 
tants. As it was a sort of city of refuge, " Avhere everybody 
was run to," during the latter years of the war, its population 
had greatly increased. Hundreds of white refugees from 
other parts of the country were still crowded into it, having 
no means of returning to their homes, or having no homes to 
return to. The corporation of Macon showed little disposition 
to relieve these unfortunate people, and the destitution and 
suffering among them were very great. They were kept from 
starvation by tlie government. " To get rid of feeding them," 
said Coloiiel Lambert, Sub-Assistant-Commissioner of the 
Freedmen's Bureau, " we are now giving them free transpor- 
tation wherever they wish to go.'' 

By a recent census, taken with a view to catching vagrants 
and setting them to work, the colored population of Macon 
was shown to be four thousand two hundred and seventy- 
three. " All those wlio are not now employed will soon be 
taken by the planters. If any will not hire out, tliey will be 
set to earning their living on the public streets. I have now 



MURDER CASES. 463 

on hand i\])plications from Alabama and Mississippi planters 
for three hnndred laborers ; I conld fill the orders if I chose 
to, for the negroes are much disposed to emigrate. But all 
the freedmen in the counties of my district are needed here, 
and I encourage them to remain." 

Colonel Lambert had on hand sixteen cases of murder and 
felonious shooting by white persons, negroes being the vic- 
tims. The seventeenth case was reported from Twiggs Coun- 
ty, while I was at Macon. A chivalrous sportsman, appar- 
ently for the fun of the thing, took a shot at a negro walking 
peaceably along the street, and killed liim. The Colonel sent 
out twenty-five mounted men to hunt the murderer ; but it 
was almost impossible to make arrests in such cases. There 
were in every place unprincipled men who approved the crime 
and helped to shield the ci'iminal. Warned by them of the 
approach of blue uniforms, he would betake himself to the 
canebrakes, or to some friendlv rarret, where he would lie 
safely concealed until the scouts had given up their search for 
him and retired from the neighborhood. These nearo-shooters 
and their accomplices were no doubt a small minority of the 
people, but they were a very dangerous minority, whom the 
better class did not deem it prudent to ofiend by assisting 
the officers of justice. 

Crimes of this description Avere more or less frequent in dis- 
tricts remote from the militarj^ posts. In some places the freed- 
men were shot down in mere wantonness and malice. In otliers, 
the very men who had been wishing them all dead or driven 
out of the country, had become enraged at seeing them emi- 
grate for higher wages than they were willing to pay, and 
sworn to kill any that attempted to leave the State. 

Said Colonel Lambert : " To prevent these outrages, we 
need a much greater military force than we have. But the 
force we have is being reduced by the mustering out of more 
troops. We are thus prevented from carrying out the inten- 
tions of the government ; and there is danger that before long 
the continuance of its authority here will be regarded as a 
mere farce. What we need is cavalry ; but our troops are all 



464 DOWX IN MIDDLE GEORGIA. 

infantry. I mount them in a case of emergency, where some 
desperado is to be hunted, by seizing horses at the first Kvery- 
stable, which we return after we have got through with them, 
poHtely thanking the proprietor in the name of the govern- 
ment." 

The soutliwestern part of Georgia is one of the most fertile 
sections of the South : it is the region of large plantations and 
rich planters. Tlie northern half of the State is compara- 
tively unproductive : it is the region of small })lanters, and of 
farmers who do their own work with the aid of their sons. 
Much of the northwestern part is barren. The fertile Souths 
west suffered little damage from the war; it came out of it with 
its plantations unimpaired, and a large stock of cotton on hand. 
Northern and ]\liddle Georgia were ploughed with the furrows 
of desolation. Sherman's army left nothing in its track but 
poverty and ruin. Plantations were wasted, provisions taken, 
stock killed or driven away, buildings and farming implements 
destroyed. The people Avere left very poor : they raised no 
crops in 'Go, and a famine was very generally anticipated. 

In this condition, all the better class of planters recognized 
the sincere efforts of the Freedmen's Bureau to aid them, and 
to organize a labor system which should prove beneficial to 
both employers and employed. They generally spoke of its 
officers Avith respect ; and many acknowledged that it would 
be a great injury to the country to have it immediately re- 
moved. Others were bitter in their opposition to it ; and I 
often heard such remarks as this : " The idea of a nigger hav- 
ing the power of bringing a ivhite man before a tribunal ! The 
Southern people a'n't going to stand that." 

The negro of Middle Georgia is a creature in whom the 
emotions entirely predominate over the intellectual faculties. 
He has little of that shrewdness which town life cultivates in 
the black race. The agents of the Bureau complained that 
they had sometimes great difficulty in persuading him to act 
in accordance with his own interests. If a stranger offered 
him twelve dollars a month, and a former master in whom he 
had confidence, appealing to his gratitude and affection, offered 



THE FREEDMEN. 465 

him one dollar, he would exclaim impulsively, " I work 
for you, Mass'r Will ! " Sometimes, when he had been in- 
duced by his friends to enter a complaint against his master 
or mistress for wrongs done him, ludicrous and embarrassing 
scenes occurred in the freedmen's courts. " Now, Thomas," 
says the good lady, " can you have the heart to speak a word 
against your old, deai*, kind mistress ? " " No, missus, 1 neber 
will ! " blubbers Thomas ; and that is all the court can get out 
of him. 

The reverence shown by the colored people toward the 
officers of the Bureau was often amusing. They looked to 
them for what they had formerly depended upon their mas- 
ters for. If they had lost a pig, they seemed to think such 
great and all-powerful men could find it for them without any 
trouble. They cheered them in the streets, and paid them at 
all times the most abject respect. 

I was told that the blacks were quite as apt to keep their 
contracts as the whites ; and that often, when they broke 
them, it was through the persuasion of some planter who 
lacked laborers. " Look here, Sam, I 'm giving two dollars 
a month more than this man you are at work for ; why don't 
you come and live with me ? " A respectable planter was 
fined a hundred and fifty dollars for this offence, by the Bu- 
reau, whilst I was at Macon. " It is one of the worst offences 
we have to deal with," said Colonel Lambert, " and one that 
we punish most severely." 

It was the popular belief that the agents of the Bureau had 
control of funds arising from such fines, and that they appro- 
priated them pretty freely to their own use. On the contrary, 
they were required at the end of each month to make returns 
and forward all funds on hand to the chief quartermaster of 
the State, who alone was authorized to apply them in neces- 
sary' expenditures. 

There were four freedmen's schools in Macon, with eleven 
teachers and a thousand pupils. There was a night-school of 
two hundred children and adults, where I saw men of my own 
age learning their letters, (and thought, " What if/ was now 

30 



466 DOWN IN MIDDLE GEORGIA. 

first learning my letters ? ") and gray-haired old men and 
women forming, with slowness and difficulty, by the aid of 
spectacles, the first characters in the writing-book. The 
teachers were furnished by the American Missionary Associa- 
tion, — the freedmen paying for their own books, (an item 
with tlie booksellers,) and for the necessary fuel and lights. 

Mr. Eddy, the superintendent, and an old experienced 
teacher, said to me : " The children of these schools have 
made in a given time more progress in the ordinary branches 
of education than any white schools I ever taught. In math- 
ematics and the higher sciences they are not so forward. 
The eaf:;erness of tlie older ones to learn is a continual wonder 
to me. The men and women say, ' We work all day, but we '11 
come to you in the evening for learning, and we want you to 
make us learn ; we 're dull, but we want you to beat it into 
us ! '" 

I was much interested in a class of young clergymen who 
recited in the evening to the young matron of the " teachers' 
home." One of them told me Avith tears of gratitude how 
kind and faithful all the teachers had been to them. 

" Are you not mistaken ? " I said. " I have been told a 
hundred times that the Southern people are your best friends." 

He replied : " Georgia passed a law making it a peniten- 
tiary offence, punishable with five years' imprisonment, to 
teach a slave to read. Now Ave are no longer slaves, and we 
are learning to read. They may deceive you, but ive know 
who are our best friends." 

I was repeatedly assured by earnest secessionists that there 
were no Union men in Georgia ; that, soon or late, all went 
into the rebellion. But one day I met an old man Avho denied 
the charge with indignation. 

" I am sixty-five years old. I fought for the spot where 
Macon now stands, when it was Indian territory. I don't 
know Avhat they mean by no Union men. If to fight against 
secession from first to last, and to 0])pose the Avar in every 
way, makes a Union man, I was that. Of course I paid 
taxes, because I could n't help it. And Avhen Stoneraan 



"N"0 PARTY" CRY. 467 

raided on ns, and every man that could bear arms was pressed, 
I went witli tlie rest, and was all day behind the breastworks. 
But I 've always spoke my mind, and being an old citizen, I 
never got hung yet. A majority of the people of Macon were 
with me, if they had only dared to say so. They hate the 
secessionists now worse than they hate the Yankees : no com- 
parison ! The secessionists now cry, ' No pai'ty ! ' but never 
a party stuck t<)o;etlier closer than they do. 

" The Confederates," he Avent on, " injured us ten times 
more than the Yankees did. When Wilson came in last 
April, he put a guard at my house, Avho stayed with me seven 
weeks, and did his duty faithfully." 



468 ANDERSONVILLE. 



CHAPTER LXV. 

ANDERSONVILLE. 

Just across the railroad track below Macon, in a pleasant 
pine grove, is the Fair Ground, where was located that thing 
of misery known to us as the Macon Prison. It was the 
" Yankee Prison," down here. 

I visited the spot one bright morning after a shower, when 
the breezes and the sunshine were in the pine-tops overhead. 
The ground was covered with a thin growth of brown grass, 
wet with the rain : stepping along which I came suddenly to 
a quadrangular space, as arid as the hill of Golgotha. No 
marks were necessary to show where the stockade had stood, 
with its elevated scaffolding on which walked the Rebel guard. 
The stockade had been removed ; but the blasted and barren 
earth remained to testify of the homesick feet that had trodden 
it into dreary sterility. 

A little stream runs through a hollow below the Fair 
Ground, carrying off much of the filth of the town. From 
that stream our prisoners drank. The tub set in the side of 
the bank at the foot of the hill, and the ditch that conducted 
into it the water for their use, were still there. Guarded, 
they came down from the stockade, to this tub, of tlie contents 
of which they were not always permitted to have enough. 
" I used to hear 'em yell for water," said a negro living near. 
" I was bad off as a slave, but I never begun to be so bad off 
as they was. Some of 'em had no shoes for winter, and almost 
no clothes." 

In the pine woods on the hill above the area of the stock- 
ade is " Death's Acre," — the prison burying-ground, enclosed 
by a plain board fence, and containing little rows of humble 
graves marked with stakes, and numbered. I noticed num- 



WIRZ, AND HIS GUILTY MASTERS. 469 

bcrs as high as two hundred and thirty. How many national 
soldiers lie buried in this lot I do not know. 

I sliall not dwell upon the sufferings endured by the inmates 
of this prison. They shrink into insignificance compared with 
the horrors of the great military prison of Georgia and the 
South. Neither of these do I purpose to say much. Enough, 
and more than enough has been spoken and written about 
them. The infamy of Anderson ville is world-wide. 

Passing through Washington in August, 1865, I one morn- 
ing looked into the hot and steaming court-room whei'e Cap- 
tain Henry Wirz was on trial. In a somewhat worn broad- 
cloth coat, with his counsel at his side occasionally whispering 
him, his elbow on a table, and his thin uneasy hand fingering 
his dark beard or supporting his chin ; attenuated, bent, and 
harassed with the most terrible anxieties, — for, however in- 
different he may have been to the lives of other and better 
men, there was one life to which he was not indifferent, and 
which was now at stake ; down-looking for the most part, 
but frequently glancing his quick sharp eye at the court 
or the witnesses ; there sat the miserable man, listening to 
minutely detailed accounts of the atrocities of which he had 
been the instrument. The cause he had served with such 
savage fidelity, had perished ; and the original authors of the 
enormities he had been employed to commit, stalked at large, 
or lay in temporary confinement, confidently expecting the 
executive clemency ; while this wretched hireling, whose sin 
consisted in having done their work too Avell, was to suffer, 
not the just for the unjust, but the guilty dog for the still 
more guilty masters. 

Fifty-eight miles below Macon, by the Southwestern Rail- 
road, is the scene of the crimes against humanity for which 
Henry Wirz was punished with death. The place is set down 
as Anderson on maps and in guide-books ; and that is the 
name by which it was known to the inhabitants of the coun- 
try, until the immense hideous business the war brought to it 
dignified it with the title of ville. m 

It is a disagreeable town, with absolutely no point of inter- 



470 ANDERSONVILLE. 

est about it except the prison. Before the war it had but five 
buildings : a church without a steeple ; a small railroad depot ; 
a little framed box in which was the country post-office ; and 
two dwellings, — a log-cabin, and a house with a saw- and 
grist-mill attached. There were other dwellings within a mile. 

Such was Anderson. Ander&onville contains some forty 
additional cheap-looking, unpainted buildings, of various sizes, 
all of which were constructed with reference to the prison ; 
such as officers' houses, large or small according to the rank 
of the occupants, government storehouses, hospital buildings, 
(for the troops on duty,) and so forth. The hospital is now 
used as a hotel. The entire aspect and atmosphere of the 
place are ugly and repulsive. 

The village lies on the railroad and west of it. Between a 
third and one half of a mile east of it, is the prison. 

The space enclosed by the rough stockade contains twenty- 
five acres, divided by a sluggish stream flowing through it. It 
looks like a great horse-yard. Much of the land is swampy, 
but the rest is elevated, rising on the south side gradually, 
and on the north side quite steeply from the brook. It was 
ffrom this shallow stream, defiled Avith refuse from the camp of 
tihe Georgia Reserves,' which it received before entering the 
stockade, that the thirty thousand prisoners, who were some- 
' times crowded into this broken oblong space, drew their chief 
supply of water. There were a few little springs in the banks, 
veify iprecious to them. 

The Avails of the stockade are of upright logs about a foot 
in diameter, twenty feet high above the ground, in which they 
are set<close together, deep enough to be kept firmly in their 
position. There are an outer and an inner wall of this de- 
scription, with a space some fifty yards in breadth between 
them. There were sentry-boxes for the soldiers on guard, 
hung like birds'-nests near the top of the inner wall. These 
werereadked by ladders. For further security, the stockade 
was • partly surrounded by a deep ditch ; and on portions of 
.two aides there is an unfinished third line of upright logs. 

QChe outer wall of the stockade has but one entrance. 



THE STOCKADE. 471 

Through tliis the newly arrived prisoners were marched, and 
along the space between the two walls, to one of two gates 
which gave admission to the interior of the prison. How- 
many thousands of brave and stalwart soldiers entered those 
infernal doors, from which only ghostly skeleton-men, or the 
corpses of skeleton-men, ever issued forth again ! 

The prisoners were of course confined within the inner 
wall. And not only so, but they were prevented from ap- 
proaching within twenty feet of it by the dead line. Or if 
not prevented, — for much of the way this fatal boundary was 
marked only by posts set at intervals of six or seven yards, — 
he who, in blindness and sickness and despair, perhaps jostled 
out of his way by the blind, sick, despairing multitude crowded 
within, set his foot one inch beyond the strict limits, as some 
Rebel on guard chose to imagine them, crack went a musket, 
a light puff of smoke curled up from one of the birds'-nests, 
and the poor wretch lay in his blood, groaning out the last of 
many groans, which ended his long misery. 

I learned that when the stockade was first built the ground 
it encloses was covered with forest-trees. Why were they not 
left — at least a few of them — to bless wdth their cooling 
shade the unfortunate captives, in the heat of those terrible 
prison summers ? Not a tree remained. Near by were forests 
of beautiful timber, to which they were not even permitted 
to go and cut w^ood for fuel and huts. 

One can imagine nothing more dreary and disheartening 
than the interior view of the stockade as it is to-day, except 
the stockade as it was durino; the war. The holes in which 
the prisoners burrowed for protection from the weather, have 
been mostly destroyed by the washing rains. Nearly all the 
huts are in ruins. The barrack sheds, in which but a mere 
handful of the thirty thousand prisoners could find place, still 
remain, marked with sad relics, — bunks with the names of 
the occupants cut upon them, or fragments of benches, knives, 
old pipes, and old shoes. 

Between the outer and inner walls were the bakehouse, 
the pen for sick-call, and the log-sheds in which the stocks 
were kept. The cookhouse was outside. 



472 anderso:n'ville. 

Besides the great stockade, there was a small stockade for 
officers, and a hospital stockade containing some eight acres, 
and surrounded by upright logs ten or twelve feet high. 

In pleasant pine woods, about a hundred rods north of the 
stockade, is the original burying-ground of the Andersonville 
prison, enlarged and converted into a national cemetery since 
the war. A whitewashed picket-fence encloses a square space 
of near fifty acres, divided into four main sections by two ave- 
nues crossing it and cutting each other at right angles. Two 
of these sections — those south of the east-and-west road — are 
subdivided by alleys into five smaller sections, where the dead 
lie in long, silent rows, by hundreds. Here are about seven 
thousand graves. The northeast quarter of the cemetery is 
undivided ; and here, in a single vast encampment, sleep five 
thousand men. There are in all near thirteen thousand graves, 
each with its little white head-board commemorating the name, 
rank, company, regiment, and date of death, of its inmate. 
The records show that the first death occurred on February 
27th, 1864, and the last on April 28th, 1865. From April 
1st, 1864, to April 1st, 1865, the average rate of mortality 
was over a thousand a month. It sometimes reached a hun- 
dred a day. 

Apart from the rest, in the northwestern corner of the cem- 
etery, are the graves of the Georgia Reserves who died while 
on duty here, — one hundred and fifteen out of four regiments. 
The mortality among them appears also to have been great ; 
and indeed one cannot conceive how it should be otherwise, 
living as they did within the pestiferous influence of the prison 
atmosphere. 

At the entrance to the cemetery, on the south side, appears 
the following inscription, — the same I noticed above the 
graves at Spottsylvania, and which might with propriety be 
placed before every national soldiers' cemetery : — 

" On Fame's eternal camping-ground 
Their silent tents are spread, 
And Glory guards with solemn round 
The bivouac of the dead." 



THE CEMETERY. 473 

At the alley-crossings stand the following : — 

«' The hopes, the fears, the blood, the tears, 
That marked the battle strife, 
Are now all crowned by Victory 
That saved the Nation's life." 

" Whether in the prison drear, 
Or in the battle's van, 
The fittest place for man to die. 
Is where he dies for man." 

" A thousand battle-fields have drunk 
The blood of warriors brave. 
And countless homes are dark and drear 
In the land they died to save." 

" Then shall the dust 

Return to the earth as it was ; 
And the spirit shall return 
Unto God who gave it." 

Over the encampment of five thousand is raised the follow- 
ing : — 

" Through all Rebellion's horrors 
Bright shines our Nation's fame : 
Our gallant soldiers, perishing. 
Have won a deathless name." 

At the intersection of the avenues rises the flag-staff planted 
here by Miss Clara Barton's party, who laid out the Cemetery 
Grounds in the summer of 1865. Here, on the soil of Georgia, 
above the graves of our dead, waves the broad symbol of the 
Nation's power and victory ; while all round this sanctified 
ground stand the ancient pines, Nature's serene and solemn 
priesthood, waving their green arms, and murmuring softly, 
by day and all through the starry night, — whilst thou, O 
mother ! O wife ! art mourning in thy desolated Northern 
home, — the requiems of the weary ones at rest. 

The Rebel owner of the land occupied by the prison had 
been pardoned by the President ; and I learned of the Freed- 
men's Bureau that he had asked for the restoration of his 



474 ANDERSONVILLE. 

property, — demanding even that the cemetery grounds should 
be turned over to him. 

In conclusion I may state that citizens of Georgia, living at 
a distance from Andersonville, said to me that they knew of 
the atrocities permitted there at the time of their occurrence, 
and that they did not think it possible for the Rebel leaders to 
have been io-norant of them. 



ANECDOTES OF SHERMAN'S CAMPAIGN. 475 



CHAPTER LXVL 

SHERMAN IN MIDDLE GEORGIA. 

According to a tradition which I found current in IVIiddle 
Georgia, General Sherman remarked, while on his grand 
march through the State, that he had his gloves on as yet, but 
that he should take them off in South Carolina. Afterwards, 
in North Carolina, I heard the counterpart of this story. As 
soon as he had crossed the State hue, " Boys," said he to his 
soldiers, " remember we are in the old North State now ; " 
which was equivalent to putting his gloves on again. 

At the mere mention of these anecdotes, however, many good 
Georgians and North Carolinians blazed up with indignation : 
" If he had his gloves on here, I should like to know what he 
did with his gloves off!" — and it was not easy to convince 
them that they had suffered less than their neighbors in South 
Carolina. 

A Confederate brigadier-general said to me : " One could 
track the line of Sherman's march all through Georgia and 
South Carolina by the fires on the horizon. He burned the gin- 
houses, cotton-presses, railroad depots, bridges, freight-houses, 
and unoccupied dwellings, with some that were occupied. He 
stripped our people of (everything. He deserves to be called 
the Great Robber of the nineteenth century. He did a sort 
of retail business in North Carolina, but it was a wholesale 
business, and no mistake, in Georgia, though perhaps not quite 
so smashing as his South Carolina operations." 

Confederate soldiers delight in criticisms and anecdotes of 
this famous campaign. Here are two or three samples. 

" When we were retreating before old Sherman, he sent 
word to Johnston that he wished he would leave just a horse- 
shoe, or something to show where he had been. Hood always 



476 SHERMAN IN MIDDLE GEORGIA. 

left enough ; but Johnston licked the ground clean behind 
him." 

" Did n't we have high old times laying in the water, nights 
when we had a chance to lay down at all ! I remember, one 
of our boys was told he must move his position, one night, 
after we 'd just got comfortably settled down in the wet. Says 

he, ' I 've got my water hot, and I be d d if I 'm going 

to move for anybody ! ' " 

" The approach to Savannah was defended by splendid, 
proud forts, bristling with long old cannon, and our cowardly 
militia just run from them without firing a shot ! " 

" You should have seen Washington's statue, at Columbia, 
after Sherman burned the city ! Nose broke, eyes bunged, 
face black and blue, and damaged miscellaneously, the Father 
of his Country looked like he 'd been to an Irish wedding." 

The citizens talked with equal freedom, but Avith less hilar- 
ity, of the doings of the " Great Robber." A gentleman of 
Jones County said : — 

" I had a noble field of corn, not yet harvested. Old Sher- 
man came along, and turned his droves of cattle right into it, 
and in the morning there was no more corn there than there 
is on the back of my hand. His devils robbed me of all my 
flour and bacon and corn meal. They took all the pillow- 
slips, ladies' dresses, drawers, chemises, sheets, and bed-quilts, 
they could find in the house, to tie up their plunder in. You 
could n't hide anything but they 'd find it. I sunk a cask of 
molasses in a hog-wallow ; that I think I sliould have saved, 
but a nigger boy the rascals had with 'em said he 'lowed there 
was something hid there ; so he went to feeling with a stick, 
and found the molasses. Then they just robbed my house of 
every pail, cup, dish, Avhat-not, that they could carry molasses 
off" to their camping-ground in. After they 'd broke open the 
cask, and took what they wanted, they left the rest to run in 
a river alone; the ground. There was one sweet hoff- wallow, 
if there never was another ! " 

A lady, living near Milledgeville, was the president of a 
soldiers' aid society. At the time of Sherman's visit she had 



STOCKINGS. — BLOODHOUNDS. — FIELD-ORDERS. 477 

in her liouse a dry-goods box full of stockings knit by the fair 
hands of patriotic ladies for the feet of the brave defenders of 
their country. This box she caused to be buried in a field 
which was afterwards ploughed, in order to obliterate all 
marks of its concealment. A squadron of cavalry arriving at 
this field, formed in line, charged over it, and discovered the 
box by a hollow sound it gave forth under the hoofs of the 
horses. The box was straightway brought to light, to the joy 
of many a stockingless invader, who had the fair ladies of 
Milledo-eville to thank for his warm feet that winter. 

The Yankees took special delight in killing dogs, many an 
innocent cur having to atone with his life for the sins com- 
mitted by bloodhounds used in hunting down negroes, con- 
scripts, and escaped Yankee prisoners. 

Sherman's field-orders show that it w'as not hil intention to 
permit indiscriminate destruction and plundering.^ Yet these 

1 See, in Special Field- Orders, No. 120, issued Nov. 24th, 1864, the following para- 
graphs : — 

" IV. The army ■will forage liberally on the country during the march. To this end, 
each brigade commander will organize a good and sufficient foraging party, under 
the command of one or more discreet officers, who will gather near the route trav- 
elled corn or forage of any kind, meat of any kind, vegetables or corn-meal or what- 
ever is needed by the command ; aiming at all times to keep in the wagon trains at 
least ten days'' pi-ovisio7is for the command, and three days' forage. Soldiers must not 
enter the dwellings of the inhabitants, or commit any trespass during the halt or a 
camp; they may be permitted to gather turnips, potatoes, and other vegetables, and 
drive in stock in front of their camps. To regular foraging parties must be intrusted 
the gathering of provisions and forage at any distance from the road travelled. 

" v. To army-corps commanders is intrusted the power to destroy mills, houses, 
cotton-gins, (j-c, and for them this general principle is laid down: In districts and 
neighborhoods xohere the army is unmolested no destruction of such property should 
be permitted; but should guerillas or bushwhackers molest our march, or should the 
inhabitants burn bridges, obstruct roads, or otherwise manifest local hostility, then 
army-corps commanders sliould order and enforce a devastation more or less relentless 
according to the measure of such hostility. 

" VI. As for horses, mules, wagons, &c., belonging to the inhabitants, the cavalry 
and artillery may appropriate freely and without limit, discriminating, however, be- 
tween the rich, who are usually hostile, and the poor or industrious, usuallj* neutral 
or friendly. Foraging parties may also take mules or horses to replace the jaded 
animals of their trains, or to serve as pack-mules for the regiments or brigades. In 
all foraging, of whatever kind, the parties engaged will refrain from abusive or 
threatening language, and may, when the officer in command thinks proper, give 
written certificates of the facts, but no receipts; and they will endeavor to leave with 
each family a reasonable portion for their maintenance." 



478 SHERMAJT m MIDDLE GEOEGIA. 

orders appear to have been interpreted l)y his men very liber- 
ally. A regiment was usually sent ahead with instructions to 
guard private dwellings ; but as soon as the guards were re- 
moved, a legion of stragglers and negroes rushed in to pil- 
lage : and I am convinced that in some cases even the guards 
pilfered industriously. 

Wilson's men, when they seized fresh horses for their use, 
turned the jaded ones loose in the country. Sherman's army- 
corps acted on a different principle. The deliberate aim 
seemed to be to leave no stock ivTiatever in the lirie of onarcTi. 
Whenever fresh horses were taken, the used-up animals 
were shot. Such also was the fate of horses and mules found 
in the country, and not deemed worth taking. The best herds 
of cattle were driven off; inferior herds were slaughtered in 
the fields, an«l left. A company of soldiers would shoot down 
a drove of hogs, cut out the hind-quarters, and abandon what 
remained. 

" The Federal army generally behaved very w^ell in this 
State," said a Confederate officer. " I don't think there was 
ever an army in the world that would have behaved better, on 
a similar expedition, in an enemy's country. Our army cer- 
tainly would n't. The destruction of railroads, mills, and gin- 
houses, if designed to cripple us, was perfectly justifiable. 

" But you did have as mean a set of stragglers following 
your army as ever broke jail. I '11 do you the credit to say, 
though, that there were more foreigners than Yankees among 
them. 

" A lot of these rascals came to my house, and just about 
turned it inside out. They would n't Avait for my wife to give 
them the keys of the bureau, but smashed in the drawers 
with the butts of their muskets, and emptied them. 

" My sister, living near me, gave her j)Iate and valuables, 
locked up in a trunk, to a negro, who took it and hid it in the 
woods. Then, to avoid suspicion, he joined the Yankees, and 
was gone with 'em several days. She felt great anxiety about 
the trunk, until one morning he came home, by the way of 
the woods, griiniing, with the trunk on his shoulder. 



DESTRUCTION AND ROBBERY BY SOLDIERS- 479 

" My wife did like my sister. She gave lier money and 
plate to a negro, who hid it ; but he did n't get off so well as 
the other darkey. The Yankees suspected him, and threat- 
ened to hang him if he did n't give it up. They got the rope 
around his neck, and actually did string him up, till they found 
he would die sooner than tell, when they let him down again. 

" Your fellows hung several men in my neighborhood, to 
make 'em tell where their money was. Some gave it up after 
a little hano-iuo; ; but I know one man who went to the limb 
three times, and saved his money, and liis life too. Another 
man had three hundred dollars in gold hid in his garden. 
He is very fat ; weighs, I suppose, two hundred and fifty 
pounds. He held out till they got the rope around his neck, 
then he caved in. ' I 'm dogged,' says he, ' if I 'm going to 
risk my weight on a rope around my neck, just for a little 
money ! ' " 

An old gentleman in Putnam County, near Eatonton, re- 
lated the following : — 

" Shei'man's men gave my son-in-law sut ! He had made 
that year thirty-two hundred gallons of syrup, — more than 
he had casks for ; so he sunk a tank in the ground, and buried 
it. The Yankee soldiers all came and helped themselves to 
it. He had the finest flower-garden in the country ; they 
made his own slaves scatter salt, and corn-on-the-cob, all over 
it, then they turned their horses on, and finished it. They 
made my own daughter wait on them at table. She said she 
kept servants for such work ; but they replied : ' You are 
none too good.' They robbed all the houses through here of 
all the jewels, watches, trinkets, and hard metals the people 
did n't put out of their way ; and stripped us of our bedding 
and clothing." 

Sherman's invasion of the South cannot properly be called 
a raid : even Wilson's brilliant expedition with twelve thou- 
sand cavalry is belittled by that epithet. 

Sherman had under his command four infantry corps and a 
corps of cavalry, pursuing different routes, their caterpillar 
tracks sometimes crossing each other, braiding a belt of devas- 



480 SHERMAN IN MIDDLE GEORGIA. 

tation from twenty-five to fifty miles in breadth, and upwards 
of six hundred miles in extent. The flanking parties driving 
the light-footed Rebel cavalry before them ; bridges fired by 
the fugitives : pontoon trains hurrying to the front of the ad- 
vancing columns, when streams were to be crossed ; the hasty 
corduroying of bad roads ; the jubilant foraging parties sweep- 
ing the surrounding country of whatever was needful to sup- 
port life and vigor in those immense crawling and bristling 
creatures, called army-corps ; the amazing quantity and variety 
of plunder collected together on the routes of the wagon-trains, 
— the soldiers sitting proudly on their heaped-up stores, as the 
trains approached, then, in lively fashion, thrusting portions 
into each wagon as it passed, — for no halt was allowed ; the 
ripping up of raih'oads, the burning and plundering of planta- 
tions ; the encampment at evening, the kindling of fires, the 
sudden disappearance of fences, and the equally sudden spring- 
ing up of shelter-tents, like mushrooms, all over the ground ; 
tlie sleep of the vast, silent, guarded hosts ; and the hilarious 
awakening to the toil and adventures of a new day ; svich are 
the scenes of this most momentous expedition, which painters, 
historians, romancers, will in future ages labor to conceive and 
portray. 

Warned by the flying cavalry, and the smoke and flames 
of plantations on the horizon, the panic-stricken inhabitants 
thou'dit only of saving their property and their lives from the 
invaders. Many fled from their homes, carrying with them 
the most valuable of their possessions, or those which could be 
most conveniently removed. Mules, horses, cattle, sheep, 
hogs, were driven wildly across the country, avoiding one 
forao-ing party perhaps only to fall into the hands of another. 
Tlie mother caught up her infant ; the father, mounting, 
took his terrified boy upon the back of his horse behind him ; 
the old man clutched his money-bag and ran ; not even the 
poultry, not even the dogs were forgotten ; men and women 
shouldering their household stuffs, and abandoning their houses 
to the mercies of the soldiers, whose waving banners and 
bright steel were already appearing on the distant hill-tops. 



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FLIGHT OF THE INHABITANTS. 481 

Such panic fli'o-lits were often worse than xiseless. Woe unto 
that house Avhich was found entirely deserted ! To the lionor 
of Southern housewives be it recorded, that the majority of 
them remained to pi'otect their homes, whilst their husbands 
and slaves ran off the live stock from the plantations. 

The flight from Milledgeville, including the stampede of the 
Rebel State legislators, who barely escaped being entrapped 
by our army, — the crushing of passengers and private effects 
into the overloaded cars, the demand for wheeled vehicles, and 
the exorbitant prices paid for them, the fright, the confusion, 
the separation of families, — formed a scene which neither the 
spectators nor the actors in it will soon forget. 

The negroes had all along been told that if they fell into 
the hands of the Yankees they would be worked to death on 
fortifications, or put into the front of the battle and shot if 
they did not fight, or sent to Cuba and sold ; and that the old 
women and young children would be drowned like cats and 
blind puppies. And now the masters showed their affection for 
these servants by running off the able-bodied ones, who Avere 
competent to take care of themselves, and leaving the aged, 
the infirm, and the children, to the "cruelties" of the invaders. 
The manner in which the great mass of the remaining negro 
population received the Yankees, showed how little they had 
been imposed upon by such stories, and how true and strong 
their faith was in the armed deliverance which Providence 
had ordained for their race. 



81 



482 PLANTATION GLIMPSES. 



CHAPTER LXVII. 

PLANTATION GLIMPSES. 

In travelling through the South one sees many plantations 
ruined for some years to come by improper cultivation. The 
land generally washes badly, and where the hill-sides have 
been furrowed up and down, instead of being properly " liori- 
zontalized," the rains plough them into gulleys, and carry off 
the cream of the soil. Or perhaps neglect, during four years 
of war, has led to the same result. Many worn-out planta- 
tions are in this condition, the gulleys cutting the slopes into 
ridges and chasms. 

In Georgia, as in parts of Alabama, one becomes weary of 
tracts of poor-looking country, overgrown with sedge-grass, 
or covered with oaks and pines. The roads, never good, in 
bad weather are frightful. Never a church steeple relieves 
the monotony of the landscape. Occasionally there is a vil- 
lage, its houses appearing to be built upon props. If standing 
upon a ridge above the highway or railroad by which you 
pass, the sight of the blue sky under them gives them a sin- 
gular appearance. 

It is customary, all through the South, to build country- 
houses in this manner, and rarely with cellars. The props, 
which are sometimes of brick, but oftener of fat pine, which 
makes an underpinning almost as durable as brick, lift the build- 
in<T a few feet from the earth and allow a free circulation of air 
under it. This peculiarity, which strikes a stranger as unne- 
cessary, is not so. A Northern man of my acquaintance, set- 
tled in North Carolina, told me that he built his house in the 
New-England style, with a close underpinning ; but soon dis- 
covered that the dampness of the earth was causing the lower 
timbers to rot badly. By opening the underpinning, and ven- 



PLOUGHS. — OVERSEERS. — BUILDINGS. 483 

tilati;ig the foundation, he succeeded in checking the decay. 
Let Northern men emigrating to the South take a hint from 
his experience. No doubt many Southern customs, wliich 
appear to us irrational or useless, will thus be found to have 
originated in common sense and necessity. 

I was too late to see the cotton-picking, and too early for 
the chopping-out and hoeing, but in season to witness the 
preparation of the ground for planting. Sometimes, in a gano- 
of fifty or sixty laborers running as many ploughs on the fields 
of a large plantation, there would be twenty or thirty women 
and strong girls. The sight of so many ploughs in motion, 
each drawn by a single mule, and scratching its narrow furrow 
three inches deep, was of itself interesting ; and the presence 
with the ploughmen of the stout black ploughwomen added to 
it a certain picturesqueness. 

I have already related how my ignorance was enlightened 
with regard to the maniffacture of ploughs on Alabama plan- 
tations. I afterwards saw the blacksmiths at work upon these 
somewhat rude implements, and learned that some of the larger 
plantations manufactured their own carts and wagons. The 
plantation harness is a simple affair, and is nearly always made 
on the place. While the negro women are spinning and weav- 
ing cloth in rainy weather, the men are bending hames, braid- 
ing mule-collars of corn husks, and making back-bands of leather 
or bagging. 

I found that some of the large plantations had, besides a 
white superintendent, two black overseers, — one whose sole 
business was to take care of the ploughs and hoes, and one 
who looked after the mules and other live stock. 

The buildings of a first-class plantation form a little village 
by themselves. There is first the planter's house, which is 
commonly a framed dwelling of good size, with two or four 
brick chimneys built outside. There is not a closet in the 
house. The pantry and dairy form a sej)arate building. The 
kitchen is another ; and the meat-house still another. Next 
in importance to the planter's liouse is the overseer's house. 
Then come the negro quarters, which, on some plantations I 



484 PLANTATION GLBIPSES. 

have seen, are very comfortable and neat-looking little framed 
houses. They are oftener mere huts. A barn is a rare excep- 
tion. The corn is kept in cribs, and other grain in out-door 
bins framed with roof-like covers that shut down and lock. 
Then there ai'e the mule-pens ; the 'gin-house (if it has not 
been burned) ; and the mill for crushing sorghum. Orchards 
are rare, planters thinking of little besides cotton, and living, 
like their negroes, chiefly on hog and hominy. 

Travelling by private conveyance from Eatonton -r- the 
northern terminus of the Milledgeville and Eatonton Rail- 
road — over to INIadison on the Georgia road, on my way to 
Augusta, I passed a night at a planter's house of the middle 
class. It was a plain, one-and-a-half story, unpainted, Aveathei'- 
browned framed dwelling, with a porch in front, and two front 
windows. The oaken floors were carpetless, but clean swept. 
The rooms Avere not done off at all ; there was not a lath, nor 
any appearance of plastering or whitewash about them. The 
rafters and shingles of the roof formed the ceiling of the gar- 
ret-chamber ; the sleepers and boards of the chamber-floor, 
the ceiling of the sitting-room ; and the undisguised beams, 
studs, and clapboards of the frame and its covering, composed 
the walls. The dining-room was a little detached framed box, 
without a fireplace, and with a single broken window. There 
was a cupboard, a wardrobe, and a bed in the sitting-room ; a 
little bedroom leading off from it ; and two beds in the garret. 

There was a glowing fire in the fireplace, beside which sat 
a neatly-attired, fine-looking, but remarkably silent grand- 
mother, taking snuff, or smoking. 

The house had three other inmates, — the planter and his 
wife, and their son, a well-educated young man, who sat in 
the evening reading " Handy Andy " by the light of jjitch- 
pine chips thrown at intervals upon the oak-Avood fire. No 
candle was lighted except for me, at bed-time. 

This, be it understood, was not the house of a small farmer, 
but of the owner of two plantations, of a thousand acres each. 
He had fifty-nine negroes before the war. 

There was a branch running through his estate, on the 



OLD ]\LVSTER AND YOUXG MASTER. 485 

bottom-land of which he could make a bale of cotton to the 
acre. On the uplands it took three or four acres to make a 
bale. This year his son had undertaken to run the plantation 
we were on, while he was to oversee the other. 

The young man was far more hopeful of success than his 
father. 

The old man said : " You can't get anything out of the 
niggers, now they 're free." 

" I never knew-them to work any better," said the youno- 
man. 

" Just now they are showing a little spirit, maybe," said 
the father ; " but it won't continue." 

"I believe mine Avill do more work this year than ever," 
said the son. 

" Perhaps they will for you, but they won't for me." 

The old man went away early in the evening to spend the 
night on his other plantation. After he was gone, the vouno- 
man looked up from the pages of " Handy Andy," and re- 
marked emphatically : — 

" The great trouble in this country is, the people are mad 
at the niggers because they 're free. They always believed 
they would n't do well if they were emancipated, and now 
they maintain, and some of them even hope, they Avon't do 
well, — that too in the face of actual facts. The old planters 
have no confidence in the niggers, and as a matter of course 
the niggers have no confidence in them. They have a heap 
more confidence in their young masters, and they work well 
for us. They have still more confidence in the Yankees, and 
they work still better for them. They have the greatest aflPec- 
tion for the Yankees ; they won't steal from them, like they 
will from us. I had forty-seven hogs in one lot when I took 
the plantation ; and in two weeks there were only twenty-six 
left. The same thing happened to my turnip patch. I don't 
reckon it is my freedmen that steal from me ; but the country 
is full of thieving darkeys that think it 's no Avrong to take 
from a Southern white man." 

" I wish we older ones had the faculty you say you have for 



486 PLAYSTATION GLIMPSES. 

makino; the free nio;sers work," said the younff man's mother. 
" I always kept two women just to weave. The same women 
are with me now. Before they were declared free, they could 
weave six and eight yards of cloth a day, easy. Now the 
most they do is ahout one yard." 

The house was on the main road traversed by the 15tli 
corps, belonging to the left wing of Sherman's army, on its 
way from Madison to Milledgeville. 

" I never would have thought I could stay home while the 
Yankees were passing," said the young man's mother, " but I 
did. They commenced passing early in the morning, and 
there was n't an hour in the day that they were not as thick 
as blue pigeons along the road. 

" I was very much excited at first. ]\Iy husband was away, 
and I had nobody with me but our negroes. A German sol- 
dier came into the house first of any. He -was an ugly-look- 
in f fellow as ever I saw ; but I suppose any man would have 
looked ugly to me under such circumstances. Said he, ' I 've 
orders to get a saddle from this house.' I told him my hus- 
band had done gone off with the only saddle we had. Then 
he said, ' A pistol will do.' I said I had no pistol. Then he 
told me he must have a watch of me. I had a watch, but it 
was put out of the way Avhere I hoped no Yankee could find 
it ; so I told him I had none for him. 

" He then looked all around the room, and said, ' Madam, 
I have orders to burn this house.' I replied that I hoped the 
Federals were too magnanimous to burn houses over the heads 
of defenceless women. He said, ' 1 '11 insure it for fifty dol- 
lars ; ' for that 's the way they got a heap of money out of 
our people. I said, ' I 've no fifty dollars to pay for insuring 
it ; and if it depends upon that, it must burn.' 

" Soon as he saw he could n't frighten me into giving him 
anything, he went to plundering. He had found a purse, with 
five dollars in Confederate money in it, when he saw an officer 
coming into the front door, and escaped through the back 
door. He was a very great villain, and the officer said if he 
•was caught he would be punished. 



THE YANKEES AND THE BEES. 487 

" I don't know wliat I should have done if it had n't been 
for the Yankee officers. They treated me poHtely in every 
way. They could n't prevent my meal and Lacoii from being 
taken by the foraging parties, — all except what I had hid ; 
but they gave me a guard to keep soldiers from plundering 
the house, and when one guard was taken away I had another 
in his place. Some families on this road, who had no guard, 
were so broken up they had nothing left to keep house with. 

" When the foragers were carrying off our provisions, I 
said to an officer, ' That 's all the corn meal I have,' — which 
was n't quite true, for I had some hid away ; but he ordered 
the men to return me a sack. I did n't make anything by the 
lie ; for the next party that came along took the sack the 
others had left. But I did save a pot of lard. I said to an 
officer, ' They 've done taken all my turkeys and cows and 
hogs, and you will leave me without anything.' ' Take back 
that pot of lard to the lady,' said he ; and I soon had it where 
it was n't seen again that day. 

" What was out doors nothing could prevent the soldiers 
from taking. I had bee-gum, and they just carried it off, 
liives and all. A soldier would catch up a hive, and march 
right along, with it on his head, and with the bees swarming 
all about him. They did n't care anything for the bees. I 
reckon they would n't sting Yankees." 

During the evening, I paid a visit to the freedmen's quar- 
ters. The doors of the huts were all open, in a row, and I 
could see a dozen negro families grouped around cheerful fires 
within, basking in the yellow light, and looking quite happy 
and comfortable. 



488 POLITICS AND FREE LABOR IN GEORGIA. 



CHAPTER LXVIII. 

POLITICS AND FREE LABOR IN GEORGIA. 

At Milledo-eville, — a mere villarje (of twenty-five hvindred 
inhabitants before the war), surrounded by a beautiful liilly 
and wooded country, — I saw something of the Georgia State 
Legislature. It was at work on a cumbersome and ratlier 
useless freedmen's code, which, however, contained no very 
objectionable features. In intelligence and political views this 
body represented the State very fairly. I was told that its 
members, like the inhabitants of the State at large, were, with 
scarce an exception, believers in the right of secession. The 
only questions that ever divided them on that subject, were 
not as to the right, but as to the policy ; and whether the State 
should secede separately, or cooperate Avith the other seceding 
States. 

Since the Rebel State debt had been repudiated, there 
existed a feeling among both legislators and people that all 
debts, public and private, ought to be wiped out with it. I 
remember well the argument of a gentleman of Morgan 
County. " Two thirds of the people in this county are left 
hopelessly involved by the loss of the war debt. There is a 
law to imprison a man for paying what the act of the conven- 
tion takes from him the power of paying. The more loyal 
portion of our citizens would not invest in Confederate scrip, 
but put their money into State bonds, which they thought safe 
from repudiation. A large number of debts are for negro 
property. Now, since slavery is abolished, all debts growing 
out of slavery ought to be abolished. Four or five men in this 
"county," he added, " have the power to ruin over thirty 
families, whose obligations they bought up with Confederate 
money. As that money turns out to have never been legally 
good for anything, all such obligations should be cancelled." 



DAVIS DESPOTISM. — SLAVE PROPERTY.— SCHOOLS. 489 

Throuo-hout the State I heard the bitterest complaints against 
the Davis despotism. " There was first a tax of ten per cent, 
levied on all our produce ; then of twelve per cent, on all 
property. Worse still, our property was seized at the will of 
the government, and scrip given in exchange, which was not 
good for taxes or anything else. There was public robbery 
by the government, and private robbery by the officers of the 
government. The Secretary of War, Seddon, had grain to 
sell ; so he raised the price of it to forty dollars a bushel, when 
it should have sold for two dollars and a half. The conscript 
act was executed with the most criminal pai'tiality. A man 
of an influential family had no difficulty in evading it. During 
the last year of the war, there were one hundred and twenty- 
two thousand young Confederates in bomb-proof situations. 
But an ordinary conscript Avas treated like a prisoner, thrown 
into jail, and often handcuffed." 

The value of slave property Avas the subject of endless de- 
bate. Said a Georgia planter : " I owned a hundred niggers ; 
their increase paid me eight per cent., their labor four per 
cent. ; and I 've sixty thousand dollars' worth of property 
buried in that lot," — pointing to the plantation graveyard. 
The convention that reconstructed the State had not the grace 
to accept emancipation without inserting in the new Bill of 
Rights the proviso " that this acquiescence in the action of 
the United States Government is not intended as a relinquish- 
ment, or waiver or estoppel of such claim for compensation of 
loss sustained by reason of the emancipation of his slaves as 
any citizen of Georgia may hereafter make upon the justice 
and magnanimity of that government." And there existed in 
most minds a growing hope that, when the Southern repre- 
sentatives got into Congress, measures would be carried, com- 
pelling the government not only to pay for slaves, but for all 
other losses occasioned by the war. 

Not one of the men elected as members of Congress could 
take the Congi-essional test-oath. The mere fact that a man 
could take that oath was sufficient to insure his defeat. 

Georgia has no common-school system. The poor, who can. 



490 POLITICS AND FREE LAI30E m GEORGIA. 

show that they are unable to pay fur the tuition of their 
chikh'en, are permitted to send them to private schools on the 
credit of the county in which they i-eside. Few, however, 
take advantage of a privilege which involves a confession of 
poverty. There is great need of Northern benevolent effort 
to bring forward the education of the poor whites in all these 
States. 

I found the freedmen's schools in Georgia supported by the 
NeAv-England Freedmen's Aid Society, and the American 
Missionary Association. These were confined to a few local- 
ities, — principally to the large towns. There were sixty-two 
schools, with eighty-nine teachers, and six thousand six hundred 
pupils. There were in other places, self-supporting schools, 
taught by colored teachers, who did not report to the State Su- 
perintendent. The opposition to the freedmen's schools, on the 
part of the whites, was generally bitter ; and in several counties 
school-houses had been burned, and the teachers driven away, 
on the withdrawal of the troops. Occasionally, however, I 
would hear an intelligent planter make use of a remark like 
this : " The South has been guilty of the greatest inconsistency 
in the world, in sending missionaries to enlighten the heathen, 
and forbidding the education of our own servants." 

At Augusta, I visited a number of colored schools ; among 
others, a private one kept by Mr. Baird, a colored man, in a 
little room where he had secretly taught thirty pupils during 
the war. The building, containing a store below and ten- 
ements above, was owned and occupied by persons of his own 
race ; the children entered it by different doors, the girls with 
their books strapped under their skirts, the boys with theirs 
concealed under their coats ; all finding their way in due season 
to the little school-room. I was shown the doors and passages 
by which they used to escape and disperse, at the approach 
of white persons. 

Mr. Baird told me that during ten years previous to the 
war, he taught a similar school in the city of Charleston, South 
Carolina. The laws prohibited persons of color from teaching ; 
and accordingly he employed a white woman to assist him. 



GEORGIAI^ AND MISSISSIPPIAN DESTITUTION". 491 

She sat and sewed, and kept watch, until the patrol looked in, 
when she appeared as the teacher, and the real teacher (a 
small man) fell hack as a pupil. It was ostensibly a school for 
free colored children, the teaching of slaves to read being a 
criminal offence ; yet many of those were taught. 

On the j'oad to Augusta, my attention was attracted by the 
conversation of two gentlemen, a Georgian and a Mississippian, 
sitting behind me in the car. 

We had just passed Union Point, where there was consider- 
able excitement about an unknown negro found lying out in 
the woods, sick with the small-pox. Nobody went to his relief, 
and the citizens, standing with hands in their pockets, allowed 
that, if he did not die of his disease, he would soon perish from 
exposure and starvation. 

*' The trouble is just here," said the Georgian behind me. 
" The nio-o-ers have never been used to taking care of their 
own sick. Formerly, if anything was the matter with them, 
their masters had them taken care of; and now they don't 
mind anything about disease, except to be afraid of it. If 
they 've a sick baby, they let it die. They 're like so many 
cliildren themselves, in respect to sickness." 

" How much better off" they were when slaves ! " said the 
Mississippian. "A man would see to his own niggers, like 
he would to his own stock. But the niggers now don't belong 
to anybody, and it 's no man's business whether they live or 
die." 

" I exercise the same care over my niggers I always did," 
replied the Georgian. " They are all with me yet. Only one 
ever left me. He was a' good, faithful servant, but sickly. He 
said one day he thought he ought to have wages, and I told 
him if he could find anybody to do better by him than I was 
doing, he 'd better go. He went, and took his family ; and 
in six weeks he came back again. ' Edward,' I said, ' how 's 
this ? ' 'I want to come and live with you again, master, like 
I always have,' he said. ' I find I ain't strong enough to work 
for wages.' ' Edward,' I said, ' I am very sorry ; you wanted 



492 POLITICS AXD FREE LABOR IN GEORGIA. 

to go, and I got another man in your place ; now I have 
notlung for you to do, and your cabin is occupied.' He just 
burst into tears. ' I 've lived with you all my days, master,' 
he said, ' and now I have no home ! ' I could n't stand that. 
' Take an ax,' I said ; ' go into the woods, cut some poles, and 
build you a cabin. As long as I have a home, you shall have 
one.' He was the happiest man you ever saw ! " 

" A Yankee would n't have done that," said the Mississip- 
pian. " Yankees won't take care of a poor white man. I 've 
travelled in the North, and seen people there go barefoot in 
winter, with ice on the ground." 

" Indeed ! " said I, turning and facing the speaker. " What 
State was that in ? " , 

" In the State of New York," he replied. " I 've seen hun- 
dreds of poor whites barefoot there in the depth of winter." 

" That is singular," I remarked. " I am a native of that 
State ; I lived in it until I Avas twenty years old, and have 
travelled through it repeatedly since ; and I never happened 
to see what you describe." 

" I have seen the same thing in Massachusetts too." 

" I have been for some years a resident of Massachusetts, 
and have never yet seen a man there barefoot in the snow." 

The Mississippian made no direct reply to tliis, but ran on 
in a strain of vehement and venomous abuse of the Yankees, 
in which he was cordially joined by his friend the Georgian. 
Although not addressed to me, this talk was evidently intended 
for my ear ; but I had heard too much of the same sort every- 
where in the South to be disturbed by it. . At length tlie con- 
versation turned upon the Freedmen's Bureau. 

" General Tillson " (Assistant Commissioner for the State) 
*' has done a mighty mean thing ! " said the Georgian. " I 've 
just made contracts to pay my freedmen seventy-five and a 
hundred dollars a year. And now he is going to issue an 
order requiring us to pay them a hundred and forty-four dol- 
lars. That will ruin us. Down in South-western Georgia 
thej can afford to pay that ; but in my county the land is so 
poor we can't feed our people at that rate. I 'm going to 



MR. C , OF OGLETHORPE COUNTY. 493 

Augusta now to see about it. If Tillson insists upon it, I 
shall throw up my contracts : I can't do it : I 'II sell out : I 
won't live in a country that 's ruled in this Avay." 

" From what county are you, sir? " I inquired. 

" Oglethorpe ; my name is C . Are you an agent of 

the Bureau ? " 

" No, sir." But from some remark I made, he got the im- 
pression that I was connected with it. His abuse of tlie Yan- 
kees ceased ; and after a while he said : — 

" I believe General Tillson is a very fair man ; and I under- 
stand why he intends to issue such an order. To one planter 
who is willing to do right by the freedmen, there ai^e five that 
will be unjust towards them. I would n't accept tlie agency 
of the Bureau in my county, because so many contracts have 
been made that I could n't approve ; and they would get me 
into trouble with my neighbors. One man has hired a good 
fair field hand, his wife, who is a good cook, liis sister, a good 
field hand, and his daughter, a good house servant, all for a 
hundred dollars a year, — twenty-five dollars apiece; and he 
does n't clothe them, either. That's a specimen. I think 
the Bureau ought to interfere in such cases. But it a'n't 
fair to make honest men suffer for the conduct of these sharp- 
ers." 

I said I thought so too. 

" Then I hope you '11 tell General Tillson so." 

" I '11 tell him so, if you wish me to." 

" And tell him you think I 'm an honest man." 

" I am inclined to think you are an honest man, and I '11 
tell him that too." 

" But see here : don't mention what I said about the Yan- 
kees, will you ? " 

" Certainly not : that 's of no consequence." 

C appeared quite anxious on that point. After serious 

reflection, he said : — 

" If you overheard me damn the Yankees, you '11 forgive 
me, when I tell you how they treated me. It was after the 
war was over, and that 's what made it hurt so. Seven of 



494 POLITICS AND FREE LABOR IN GEORGIA. 

^Stoneman's men came to my house, and put a carbine to my 
breast, and demanded my watch. ' You may shoot me,' I 
said, ' but you can't have my watch.' ' Then give us some 
dinner,' they said. I got dinner for them, and waited on them 
with my own hands. They paid me for my trouble by steal- 
ing seven of my horses. While I was absent from home, 
trying to get back my horses, some more Yankees came and 
robbed my house ; they broke open the bureau with a chisel, 
and injured more than they took. You don't blame me for 
cursing 'em, do you ? " 

" Not in the least. According to your story, they were very 
great rascals." 

After another interval of silence, C resumed : — 

" Tell General Tillson I am willing to pay my laborers 
every dollar they 're worth : and that I treat them well. I 've 
one boy that has always been with me, and is a better over- 
seer than any white man I ever had. He looks after my in- 
terest better than I can myself, for he is younger. I trust 
everything in his hands, — all my keys, and sometimes 
money." He could not forbear adding, — " Your fanatics at 
the North would n't believe I treat this man so well." 

" Very likely. But it seems you have good reason for 
treating him well. What do you pay him ? " 
" I pay him two hundred dollars a year." 
" And what would you have to pay a white overseer ? " 
" I could n't get a white man to do for me what he does, for 
eiffht hundred dollars," 

" I am quite sure," I said, " that our fanatics at the North 
would 7iot see your extraordinary kindness to this man in the 
same lio-ht you do. They would think him worth considerably 
more than you pay him. If he does the work of a white 
overseer, they 'would say he ought to have the salary of a 
white overseer. They are such an unreasonable set, they 
would consider six hundred dollars, the difference between his 
•wages and a white man's, a pretty heavy tax to pay on the 
color of his skin." 

C did not seem inclined to pursue the subject, but 



I^IiVRKET PRICE OF LABOR. 495 

commenced talking in a very candid, sensible manner, of the 
old Southern methods. 

" If the war only breaks them up, it will have done some 
good. Our large planters generally gave no attention to busi- 
ness. The men were fast and reckless ; the women, helpless 
and luxurious. We gave so much attention to cotton and 
niggers we could n't stop to think of the comforts of life. And 
after all we were just working to enrich Northern capitalists. 
There are no millionaires amongst us. Thfee hundred thou- 
sand dollars is a rare and larcre fortune in Georiiia." 

Arriving in Augusta that night, I went the next morning 
to call on General Tillson. In our conversation, I took early 
occasion to speak to him of my yesterday's acquaintance, Mr. 

C , of Oglethorpe County. " He will be here soon, and 

explain to you Avh}'- it is that planters in Northern Georgia 
cannot afford to pay the twelve dollars a month you insist 
upon." 

" He will not be the first who has come to me on that busi- 
ness," replied the clear-headed general. " I shall give him a 
patient heai'ing, and if he convinces me that I am wrong, he 
w-ill do more than any have done yet. When it was white 
man against white man, these planters paid one hundred and 
fifty and two hundred dollars a year for first-class field-hands. 
Now they are not willing to pay the negro for his labor one 
half what they formerly paid his owner. When I took charge 
of the Bui'eau's affairs in this State, last September, I found 
the ordinary wages to be from two to seven dollars a month, 
— sometimes as low as twelve bushels of corn for a year's 
labor. And the planters complained that the freedman would 
n't work for those prices. Now all I ask is that tliey should 
pay what his labor is worth in the open market. Men from 
Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, say it is worth fifteen dollars, 
and stand ready to give it. Since that is the case, to permit 
him to make contracts for verv much less, is to permit him to 
be swindled. A little while ago many of. these men were 
wishing the negroes all driven out of the State ; and now they 
are in a great panic, because I am allowing them to go. They 



496 POLITICS AND FREE LABOR m GEORGIA. 

come to me to remonstrate against sending off any more labor- 
ers. ' Gentlemen,' I say, ' if you cannot afford to pay the 
freedman what his services are worth, it is not his fault, but 
your misfortune.' 

" But tliey can afford it. Here is a careful statement of 
facts relating to free labor in Wilkes County, which adjoins 
Oglethorpe. ' One field-hand Avill cultivate nine acres of cot- 
ton, on which he will raise three and a half bales, worth — 
say three hundred and seventy-five dollars. The same hand 
will also cultivate nine acres of corn, raising one hundred and 
eight bushels, worth one hundred and eight dollars. Total, 
four hundred and eighty-three dollars. 

" ' Expenses : — Board, fifty-two dollars. Rent of cabin, 
six. Fuel, six. Wages, one hundred forty-four. Total, two 
hundred and eio-ht dollars.' Deductino; two hundred and 
eight from four hundred and eighty-three, you have a clear 
profit of two hundred and seventy-five dollars on each man ; 
that, too, at the rate of wages I prescribe. 

" These, understand, are the planters' own estimates. In 
South-western Georgia, Avhere the land is much richer than in 
this section, the most extravagant charges against the planta- 
tion show a nett income of three hundred and twenty-five 
dollars from the labor of a full field freedman. This estimate 
is from data furnished by several of the most popular and 
extensive planters in that region. 

" Now," added the Commissioner, " when your friend, Mr. 

C , of Oglethorpe, comes to make his complaint, if he is 

the honest man you represent him to be, I will show him, 
by his own figuring, that so far from being impoverished by 
paying his men twelve dollars a month, he will make a hand- 
some profit from them." 

As I went out, I found Mr. C , of Oglethorpe, in the 

ante-room, Avaiting to see the General. He regarded me with 
a curious, uneasy expression, fearing no doubt lest I had 
reported to the Commissioner his indiscreet remarks of yester- 
day concerning the Yankees and the Bureau. I introduced 
him to General Tillson, however, in a manner that seemed to 
reassure him, and left them closeted together. 



PLANTERS' PROFITS. 497 

That evening, by appointment, I saw the General at his 
residence. " Well," I asked, " how did you and my fnend 

C get along ? " and received from him the following 

statement, which he had kindly had copied for me. 

" Statement of C , of Oglethorpe County, leading 

planter of that county, 

" Good hands in county will work 8^ acres 

in cotton — 2 bales $300 00 

8-^ acres in corn — 85 bush 85 00 

Gross Income, $385 00 

" Expenses. 

3 lbs. bacon a week, 60 cts. 

1 peck meal, 25 " 

Board of hand for year $44 20 

Rent of Cabin 10 00 

Fuel 25 00 

Wages 144 00 

Total Expenses, $223 20 

Nett Income from each hand,. ... $IG1 80." 

" Here," said General Tillson, " the profits of the labor are 

placed as low, and the expenses as high, as Mr. C could 

figure them, after considerable study. From the labor of a 
hundred freedmen, on his two plantations, he would clear, 
according to his own account, upwards of sixteen thousand 
dollars, — sufficient to cover all risks, and all other expenses 
of the plantation, and leave him a little fortune at the end of 
the year." 

Mr. C had repeated to General Tillson his statement 

to me, regarding the dishonest contracts made with the freed- 
men in his county. " The truth is," said the General, " he 
wants to hire them himself for about half what they are worth, 
and he is indignant because others have hired them for less. 
He can really afford to pay his help twice what I demand, and 
then make two hundred dollars a year from the labor of each 
freedman. The other day some leading planters from South- 
82 



498 POLITICS AND FREE LABOR IN GEORGIA. 

western Georgia made the same complaint with regard to 
■wages. ' Very well,' I said, ' if" yon can't pay twelve dollars 
a month, give yonr laborers a part of the crops.' They thonght 
one seventh of the cotton was more than they onght to give, 
declarincr that the neo-ro would get rich on that. ' If sixty 
freedmen,' I said, ' can get rich on one seventh of a crop, the 
planter, I am sure, can get rich on six sevenths.' 

" The trouble is, these men wish to make everything there 
is to be made, and leave the freedman nothing. They resort 
to the meanest schemes to cheat him. They tell the negroes 
that if they go with the agents of the Bureau to other places, 
the able-bodied among them will be carried off and sold into 
Cuba, and the women and children drowned in the Missis- 
sippi.^ 

" I have not yet sent a thousand negroes out of the State," 
continued General Tillson. " But I have sent off enough to 
alarm the people, and raise the rate of wages. I told the 
planters on the coast of Georgia, that they must pay the 
women twelve dollars a month, and the men fifteen, or I 
would take the colored population out of their counties. That 
brought them to terms, after all their talk about wanting to 
get rid of the niggers. 

■ 1 Since my return from the South, I have received a letter from a gentleman of 
character, late an officer in the Federal army, from which I make the following ex- 
tract bearing on this subject: — 

"After leaving you at Grand Gulf, I rode twenty or thirty miles into the interior, 
but could lind little inducement for a Northern man to settle in that portion of the 
South. The further you go from main routes, the more hostile you lind the inhabitants. 
I finally determined to locate on or near the Mississippi, and recent experience only 
confirms my earlier impressions. I am now located on the river, one hundred and 
sixty miles below Memphis, on the Arkansas side, and am making preparations to 
plant one thousand acres of cotton. It has been very difHcult to secure help here, 
and I determined to make a trip to Georgia for the purpose of obtaining the requisite 
number of hands. I succeeded tolerably well, and could have hired many more than 
I needed, had not the people induced the negroes to believe that we were taking them 
to Cuba to sell them. I award the palm to the Georgians, as the meanest and most 
despicable class of people it was ever my misfortune to meet. While they are con- 
stantly urging that the negro will not work, they use every means to dissuade 
him from securing honorable and profitable employment. I was never so grossly 
insulted as when in Georgia. They fear the powerful arm of the government, but 
are to-day as bitter Rebels as at any time during the war. The consequences would 
be most disastrous if the military force scattered through the South should be at once 
removed." 



BRIBES. — FIXES. — JAYHAWKERS. 499 

" The freed })eople in most parts of the State are still so 
ignorant of their condition, that they are glad to make con- 
tracts to work for only their food and clothes. There are 
many, however, who will live vagrant lives, if permitted. It 
is necessary to compel snch to enter into contracts." Firmly 
convinced of this necessity, General Tillson had issued an 
order directing his agents to make contracts for all freedmen 
without other means of support, who should neglect to make 
contracts for themselves after a given time. The Commis- 
sioner at Washington disapproved the order, for Avhat reason 
I cannot divine, unless it was feared that the over-zealous 
friends of the negro at the North might be alarmed by it. No 
contracts were made for the vagrant blacks under it ; but its 
effect, in inducing them to make contracts for themselves, was 
immediate, wholesome, and very gratifying. 

The officers of the Bureau were everywhere subject to the 
temptation of bribes ; and I often heard planters remark that 
they could do anything with the Bureau they pleased, if they 
had plenty of money. General Tillson said, " I could make 
a million dollars here very shortly, if I chose to be dishonest. 
Only to-day I was offered a thousand dollars for one hundred 
freedmen, by a rich planter." He had made it a rule of the 
Bureau to receive no personal fees whatever for any services. 

Over three thousand dollars had been paid in fines by the 
people of Georgia for cruelties to the freedmen during the 
past three months. " It is' considered no murder to kill a 
negro. The best men in the State admit that no jury would 
convict a white man for killing a freedman, or fail to hang a 
negro who had killed a white man in self-defence." 

The General added: "As soon as the troops were with- 
drawn from Wilkes County, last November, a gang of jay- 
hawkers went through, shooting and burning the colored 
people, holding their feet and hands in the fire to make them 
tell where their money was. It left such a stigma on the 
county that the more respectable class held a meeting to de- 
nounce it. This class is ashamed of such outrages, but it does 
not prevent them, and it does not take them to heart ; and I 



500 POLITICS AND FREE LABOR IN GEORGIA. 

could name a dozen cases of murder committed on the colored 
people by young men of these first families." 

General Tillson, by his tact, good sense, business capacity, 
freedom from prejudice for or against color, and his uniform 
candor, moderation, and justice, had secured for the Bureau 
the cooperation of both the State Convention and the Legisla- 
ture, and was steadily winning the confidence and respect of 
the planters. The most serious problem that remained to be 
solved was the Sea-Island question, of which I shall speak 
hereafter. 

The prospect was favorable for a good cotton crop in Geor- 
gia, although anxiety was felt with regard to the vitality of the 
seed, much of which, being several years old, had no doubt 
been injured by keeping. 



SHERMAN'S HAIR-PINS. 601 



CHAPTER LXIX. 

SHERMAN IN EASTERN GEORGIA. 

The track of the Central Railroad, one hundred and ninety- 
one miles in length, was destroyed with conscientious thor- 
oughness by Sherman's army. From Gordon, twenty miles 
below Macon, to Scarborough Station, nine miles below Mil- 
len, a distance of one hundred miles, there was still an impas- 
sable hiatus of bent rails and burnt bridges, at the time of my 
journey ; and in order to reach Savannah from Macon, it was 
necessary to proceed by the Georgia road to Augusta, either 
returning by railroad to Atlanta, or crossing over by railroad 
and stage to Madison, between which places the Georgia road, 
destroyed for a distance of sixty-seven miles, had been re- 
stored. From Augusta I went doAvn on the Augusta and 
Savannah road to a station a few miles below Waynesboro', 
where a break in that road rendered it necessary to proceed 
by stages to Scarborough. From Scarborough to Savannah 
the road was once more in operation. 

The relaid tracks were very rough ; many of the old rails 
having been straightened and put down again. " General 
Grant and his staff passed over this road a short time ago," 
said a citizen ; " and as they went jolting along in an old box- 
car, on plain board seats, they seemed to think it was great 
fun : they said they Avere riding on Sherman's hair-jyinSy'' — an 
apt name applied to the most frequent form in which the rails 
were bent. 

" Sherman's men had all sorts of machinery for destroying 
the track. They could rip it up as fast as they could count. 
They burnt the ties and fences to heat the iron ; then two. 
men would take a bar and twist it or wrap it around a tree or 
a telegrapt post. Our people found some of their iron?- 



602 SHERMAN IN EASTERN GEORGIA. 

benders, and tliey helped mightily about straightening the 
rails again. Only the best could be used. The rest the devil 
can't straighten." 

Riding along by the destroyed tracks, it was amusing to see 
the curious shapes in which the iron had been left. Hair-pins 
predominated. Corkscrews were also abundant. Sometimes 
we found four or five rails wound around the trunk of a tree, 
which would have to be cut before they could be got off again. 
And tliere was an endless varity of most un geometrical twists 
and curves. 

The Central Railroad was probably the best in the State. 
Before the war its stock paid annual dividends of fifteen per 
cent., — one year as high as twenty seven and a half per cent. 
It owned property to the amount of a million and a half dol- 
lars, mostly invested in Europe. This will be nearly or quite 
sunk in repairing the damage done by Sherman. Then the 
road will have all of its bent iron, — for Sherman could not 
caiTy it away or burn it ; — and this was estimated to be worth 
two thirds as much as new iron. The track, composed partly 
of .the T and partly of the U rail, was well laid ; and the 
station-houses were substantially built of brick. I was told that 
the great depot building at Millen, although of wood, was 
equal in size and beauty to the best structures of the kind in 
the North. Sherman did not leave a building on the road, 
from Macon to Savannah. For warehouses, I found box-cars 
stationed on the side tracks. 

The inhabitants of Eastern Georgia suffered even more than 
those of Middle Georgia from our army operations, — the 
men having got used to their wild business by the time they 
arrived there, and the General having, I suspect, slipped one 
glove off. Here is the story of an old gentleman of Burke 
County : — 
/ " It was the 14th Corps that came through my place. They 
looked like a blue cloud coming. They had all kinds of music, 
— horns, cow-bells, tin-pans, everything they could pick up 
that would make a hideous noise. It was like Bedlam broke 
loose. It was enough to frighten the old stumps ii^ the dead- 



TREASURE HUN^TING. 503 

enings, say notliing about tlie people. They burned every- 
thing but occupied dwelHngs. They cut the belhises at the 
blacksmith-shops. They took every knife and fork and cook- 
ing utensil we had. My wife just saved a frying-pan by 
hanging on to it ; she was considerable courageous, and they 
left it in her hands. After that they came back to get her to 
cook them some biscuit. 

" ' How can I cook for you, when you 've carried off every- 
tliinn; ? ' she said. 

" They told her if she would make them a batch of biscuit 
they would bring back a sack of her own flour, and she should 
have the balance of it. She agreed to it ; but while the bis- 
cuit was baking, another party came along and carried the 
sack off again. 

" The wife of one of my neighbors, — a very rich family, 
brought up to luxuries, — just saved a single frying-pan, like 
we did. Their niggers and all went off with Sherman ; and 
for a Aveek or two they had to cook their own victuals in that 
frying-pan, cut them with a pocket-knife, and eat them with 
their fingers. ]\Iy folks had to do the same, but we had n't 
been brought up to luxuries, and did n't mind it so much. 

" General Sherman went into the house of an old woman 
after his men had been pillaging it. He sat down and drank 
a glass of water. Says she to him, ' I don't wonder people 
say you 're a smart man ; for you 've been to the bad place and 
got scrapings the devil would n't have.' His soldiei's heard of 
it, and they took her dresses and hung them all up in the 
highest trees, and drowned the cat in the well. 

" A neighbor of mine buried all his gold and silver, and 
built a hog-pen over the spot. But the Yankees were mighty 
sharp at finding things. They mistrusted a certain new look 
about the hog-pen, ripped it aAvay, stuck in their bayonets, and 
found the specie. 

" Another of my neighbors hid his gold under the brick 
floor of his smoke-house. He put down the bricks in the 
same place ; but the rascals smelt out the trick, pulled up the 
floor, got_ the gold, and then burnt the smoke-house. They 



504' SHERMAN IN EASTERN GEORGIA. 

made him take off his boots and hat, whicli they wore away. 
They left him an old Yankee hat, which he now wears. He 
swears he never '11 buy another till the government pays him 
for his losses. 

" My wife did the neatest thing. She took all our valuables, 
such as watches and silver-spoons, and hid them in the corn- 
field. With a knife she would just make a slit in the ground, 
open it a little, put in one or two things, and then let the top 
earth down, just like it was before. Then she 'd go on and 
do the same thing in another place. The soldiers went all 
over that corn-field sticking in their bayonets, but they did n't 
find a thing. The joke of it was, she came very near never 
finding; them again herself. 

" One of my neighbors, a poor man, was stopped by some 
cavalry boys, who demanded his watch. He told 'em it was 
such a sorry watch they would n't take it. They wanted to 
see it, and when he showed it, they said, ' Go along ! — we 
won't be seen carryino; off" such a lookino- thino; as that ! ' " 

The following story was related to me by a Northern man, 
who had been twenty -five years settled in Eastern Georgia : — 

" My neighbors were too much frightened to do anything 
well and in good order. But I determined I 'd save as much 
of my property as I could drive on its own feet or load on to 
wagons. I took two loads of goods, and all my cattle and 
hogs, and run 'em off" twenty miles into Screven County. I 
found a spot of rising ground covered with gall bushes, in the 
middle of a low, wet place. I went through water six inches 
deep, got to the knoll, cut a road through the bushes, run my 
wagons in, and stuck the bushes down into the wet ground 
where I had cut them. They were six or eight feet high, and 
hid everything. My cattle and hogs I turned off in a bushy 
field. After that, I went to the house of a poor planter and 
staid. That was Friday night. 

"Sunday, the soldiers came. I lay hid in the woods, and 
saw 'em pass close by the knoll where my goods were, running 
in their bayonets everywhere. The bushes were green yet, 
and they did n't discover anything, though they passed right 
by the edge of them. 



FORAGERS. — A NEW MISFORTUNE. 505 

" All at once I heard the women of the house scream mur- 
der. Thinks I, ' It won't do for me to be lying here looking 
out only for my own interests, while the soldiers are abusing the 
women.' I crawled out of the bushes, and was hurrying back 
to the house, when five cavalrymen overtook me. They put 
their carbines to my head, and told me to give 'em my money. 

" As soon as I 'd got over my fright a little, I said, ' Gentle- 
men, I 've got some Confederate money, but it will do you no 
good.' 

" ' Give me yoiir pistol,' one said. I told him I had no 
pistol. They thought I lied, for they saw something in my 
pocket ; but come to snatch it out, it was only my pipe. Then 
they demanded my knife. 

" ' I 've nothing but an old knife I cut my tobacco with ; — 
you won't take an old man's knife ! ' 

" They let me go, and I hurried on to the house. It was 
full of soldiers. 1 certainly thought something dreadful was 
happening to the women ; but they were screeching because 
the soldiers were carrying off their butter and honey and corn- 
meal. They were making all that fuss over the loss of their 
property ; and I thought I might as well have stayed to watch 
mine. 

" That night the army camped about a mile from there ; and 
the next morning I rode over to see if I could get a safeguard 
for the house. But the officers said no ; — they were bound 
to have something to eat. I went back, and left my horse at 
the door while I stepped in to tell the women if they wished 
to save anything that was left they must hide it. Before I 
could get out again my horse was taken. I went on after it ; 
the army was on the march again, and I was told if I would 
go with it all day, I should have my horse come night. I 
marched a few miles, but got sick of it, and went back. I 
could see big fires in the direction of my house, and I knew 
that the town was burning. 

" I got back to the poor planter's house, and found a new 
misfortune had happened to him. The night before, all his 
hogs and mine came together to his door, — the soldiers having 



506 SIIER.MAK IN EASTERN GEORGIA. 

let the fences down. ' This won't do,' I said ; ' I 'm going to 
make another effort to save my hogs.' But he was true South- 
ern ; he had n't energy ; he said, ' No use ! ' and just sat 
stilL I tolled my hogs off" with corn, and scattered corn all 
about in the bushes to keep them there. 'The next day it was 
hot, and they lay in the shade to keep cool ; so the soldiers 
did n't find them. 

" But when, as I said, I got back to his house, I found the 
soldiers , slaughtering his hogs right and left. They killed 
every one. So much for his lack of faith. But tlie worst 
part of the joke was, they borrowed his cart to carry off" his 
own hogs to the wagon-train which was passing on another 
road half a mile away. They said they 'd bring it back in 
an hour. As it didn't come, he went for it, and found 
they 'd piled rails on to it and burnt it. I had taken care of 
my wagons, and he might have done the same with his. But 
that 's the difference between a Northern and a Southern man. 

" jMonday I returned home, and found my family living on 
corn-meal bran. They had been robbed of everything. The 
soldiers had even taken the hat off" from my little grandson's 
head, six years old. They took a mother-hen away from her 
little peeping chickens. There were fifty or a 'hundred sol- 
diers in the house all one day, breaking open cliests and bu- 
reaus ; and those that come after took what the first had left. 
My folks asked for protection, being Northern people ; and 
there was one officer wdio knew them ; but he could con- 
trol only his own men. So we fared no better than our 
neighbors." 

The staging to Scarborough was very rough ; but our route 
lay through beautiful pine woods, carpeted with wild grass. It 
was January, but the spring frogs were singing. 

The best rollinir-stock of the Central lload had been run 
up to Macon on Sherman's approach, and could not be got 
down again. So I had the pleasure of riding from Scarbor- 
ough to Savannah in an old car crowded full of wooden chairs, 
in place of the usual seats. 

The comments of the passengers on the destruction wrought 



THE ROAD TO SAVANNAH. 507 

by Sherman wei-c sometimes bitter, sometimes sentimental. 
A benevolent gentleman remarked : " How much irood mio;ht 
be done with the millions of property destroyed, by building 
new railroads elsewhere ! " To which a languishing lady 
replied : " What is the use of building railroads for slaves to 
ride on ? I 'd rather be free, and take it afoot, than belong to 
the Yankees, and I'ide." 

Our route lay along the low, level borders of the Ogeechee 
River, the soil of Avhich is too cold for cotton. We passed 
immense swamps, in the perfectly still waters of which the 
great tree-trunks were mirrored. And all the way the spring 
frogs kept up their shnll singing. 

At some of the stations I saw bales of Northern hay that 
had come up from Savannah. " There is a commentary on our 
style of farming," said an intelligent planter from near Milieu. 
" This land, though worthless for cotton, could be made to 
grow splendid crops of grass, — and we import our hay." 



508 A GLANCE AT SAVAKJSTAIl. 



CHAPTER LXX. 

A GLANCE AT SAVANNAH. 

On the IGtli of November, 1864, Sherman l)c_o;an his grand 
march from Atlanta. In less than a month liis army had 
made a journey of three hundred miles, consuming and de- 
vastating the country. On December 18th, by the light of 
the setting sun, General Hazen's Division of the 15th Corps 
made its brilliant and successful assault on Fort McAlister on 
the Ogeechee, opening the gate to Savannah and the sea. On 
the night of the 20th, Savannah was hurriedly evacuated by 
the Rebels, and occupied by Sherman on the 21st. The city, 
with a thousand prisoners, thirty-five thousand bales of cotton, 
two hundred guns, three steamers, and valuable stores, thus 
fell into our hands without a battle. Within forty-eight hours 
a United States transport steamer came to the wharf, and the 
new base of supplies, about which we were all at that time 
so anxious, was established. 

The city was on fire during the evacuation. Six squares 
and portions of other squares were burned. At the same 
time a mob collected and commenced breaking into stores and 
dwellings. The destroyers of railroads were in season to save 
the city from the violence of its own citizens. 

A vast multitude of negroes had followed the army to the 
sea. This exodus of the bondmen from the interior had been 
permitted, not sim]ily as a boon to them, but as an injury to 
the resources of the Confederacy, like the destruction of its 
plantations and railroads. What to do with them now became 
a serious problem. Of his conference with Secretary Stanton 
on the subject at Savannah, General Sherman says : " We 
agreed perfectly that the young and able-bodied men should 
be enlisted as soldiers or employed by the quartermaster in 



ASPECT OF THE CITY. 509 

the necessary work of unloading ships, and for otlier army 
purposes ; but this left on our hands the old and feeble, the 
•women and children, who had necessarily to be fed by the 
United States. Mr. Stanton summoned a large number of 
the old negroes, mostly preachers, with whom he held a long 
conference, of which he took down notes. After this confer- 
ence, he was satisfied the negroes could, with some little aid 
from the United States by means of the abandoned plantations 
on the sea islands and along the navigable rivers, take care 
of themselves." Sherman's " General Orders No. 15 " were 
the result, giving negro settlers " possessory titles " to these 
lands. Thus originated the knotty Sea-Island- controversy, of 
which more by-and-by. 

The aspect of Savannah is peculiarly Southern, and not 
without a certain charm. Its uniform squares, its moist and 
heavy atmosphere, the night fogs that infest it, the dead level 
of its sandy streets, shaded by two and four rows of moss- 
draped trees, and its frequent parks of live-oaks, water-oaks, 
wild-olives, and magnolias, impress you singularly. The city, 
notwithstanding its low, flat appearance, is built on a plain 
forty feet above the river. The surrounding country is an 
almost unbroken level. Just across the Savannah lie the low, 
marshy shores of South Carolina. It is the largest city of 
Georgia, having something like twenty-five thousand inhab- 
itants. Here, before the war, dwelt the aristocracy of the 
country, living in luxurious style upon the income of slave 
labor on the rice and cotton plantations. 

Trade was less active at Savannah than in some of the 
interior towns, owing to its greater isolation. A flood of 
business passed through it, however. The expense of trans- 
portation Avas very great. Every bale of cotton brought down 
the river from Augusta, two hundred and thirty miles, cost 
eight dollars ; and the tariff on returning freights was two 
cents a pound. 

There were sixteen hundred colored children in Savannah, 
twelve hundred of whom attended school. Three hundred 
and fifty attended the schools of the Savannah Educational 



510 A GLANCE AT SAVANNAH. 

Association, organized and supported by the colored popula- 
tion. I visited one of these schools, taught by colored per- 
sons, in a building which was a fiimous slave-mart, in the good 
old days of the institution. In the large auction-room, and 
behind the iron-barred windows of the jail-room over it, the 
children of slaves were now enjoying one of the first, inesti- 
mable advantages of freedom. 

If you go to Savannah, do not fail to visit the Bonaventure 
Cemetery, six miles from the city. You drive out southward 
on the Thunderbolt Road, past the fortifications, through fields 
of stumps and piny undergrowths, Avhose timber was cut away 
to give range to the guns, to the fragrant, sighing solitude of 
pine woods beyond. Leaving the main road, you pass beneath 
the low roof of young evergreen oaks overarching the path. 
This leads you into avenues of indescribable beauty and 
gloom. Whichever way you look, colonnades of huge live- 
oak trunks open before you, solemn, still, and hoary. The 
great limbs meeting above are draped and festooned Avith long 
fine moss. Over all is a thick canopy of living green, shut- 
tin o- out the glare of day. Beneath is a sparse undergrowth 
of evergreen bushes, half concealing a few neglected old family 
monuments. The area is small, but a more fitting scene for a 
cemetery is not conceivable. 



CHARLESTON HARBOR. 511 



CHAPTER LXXI. 

CHARLESTOX AND THE WAR. 

The railroad from Savannah to Charleston, one hundred 
and four miles in length, running through a countiy of rice- 
plantations, was struck and smashed by Sherman in his march 
from the sea. As it never was a paying road before the war, 
I could see no prospect of its being soon repaired. The high- 
way of the ocean supplies its place. There was little travel 
and less business between the two cities, two or three small 
steamers a week being sufficient to accommodate all. Going 
on board one of these inferior boats at three o'clock one after- 
noon, at Savannah, I awoke the next morning in Charleston 
harbor. 

A warm, soft, misty morning it was, the pale dawn breaking 
through rifts in the light clouds overhead, a vapory horizon of 
dim sea all around. What is that great bulk away on our left, 
drifting past us ? That is the thing known as Fort Sumter : 
it does not float from its rock so easily : it is we who are drift- 
ing past it. We have just left Fort Moultrie on our right ; 
the low shores on which it crouches lie off there still visible, 
like banks of heavier mist. That obscure phenomenon ahead 
yonder looms too big for a hencoop, and turns out to be Fort 
Ripley. The dawn brightens, the mist clears, and we see, far 
on our right. Castle Pinckney ; and on our left a gloomy line 
of pine forests, which we are told is James Island. 

This is historic ground we are traversing, — or rather his- 
toric water. How the heart stirs with the memories it calls 
up ! What is that at anchor yonder ? A monitor I A man 
on its low flat deck walks almost level with the water. Two 
noticeable objects follow after us : one is a high-breasted, 
proud-beaked New York steamer ; the other, the wonderful 
light of dawn dancing upon the waves. 



612 



CHARLESTON AND THE WAR. 



Before us all the while, rising and expanding as we approach, 
its wharves and shipping, its Avarehouses and church steeples, 
gradually taking shape, on its low peninsula tlunist out between 
the two rivers, is the haughty and defiant little city that inau- 
gurated treason, tliat led the Rebellion, that kindled the fire it 
took the nation's blood to quench. And is it indeed you, city 
of Charleston, lying there so quiet, harmless, half asleep, in 
the peaceful morning light ? Where now are the joy-intox- 
icated nuiltitudes who thronged your batteries and piers and 
house-tops, to see the flag of the Union hauled down from 
yonder shattered little fortress? Have you forgotten the 
frantic cheers of that frantic hour ? Once more the old flag 
floats there ! How do you like the looks of it, city of Charles- 
ton ? 




THE GREAT FIRE OF 1861. 513 

I gave my travelling-bag to a black boy on the wharf, who 
took it oil his head and led the -way through the just awakened 
streets to the Mills House. 

The appearance of the city in the early morning atmosphere, 
was prepossessing. It is a well built, light, and airy city. It 
lacks the broad streets, the public sc^uares, and the forest of 
trees, which give to Savannah its charm ; but it strikes one as 
a more attractive place for a residence. You are not at all 
oppressed Avith a sense of the lowness of the situation ; and 
yet it is for less elevated than Savannah, the flat and narrow 
peninsula on which it is built rising but a few feet above hio-h 
water. 

Charleston did not strike me as a very cleanly town, and I 
doubt if it ever was such. Its scavengers are the turkey 
buzzards. About the slaughter- pens on tlie outskirts of the 
city, at the markets, and wherever garbage abounds, these 
black, melancholy birds, properly vultures, congregate in num- 
bers. There is a law against killing them, and they are very 
tame. In contrast with these obscenities are the wardens of 
the suburban residences, green in midwinter with semi-tropical 
shrubs and trees. 

Here centred the fashion and aristocracy of South Carolina, 
before the war. Charleston was the watering-place where the 
rich cotton and rice planters, who lived upon their estates in 
winter, came to lounge away the summer season, thus invert- 
ing the Northern custom. It has still many fine residences, 
built in a variety of styles ; but, since those recent days of its 
pride and prosperity, it has been wofully battered and deso- 
lated. 

The great fire of 1861 swept diagonally across the city from 
river to river. A broad belt of ruin divides what remains. 
One eighth of the entire city was burned, comprising much 
of its fairest and wealthiest quarter. No effort had yet been 
made to rebuild it. The proud city lies humbled in its ashes, 
too poor to rise again without the helping hand of Northern 
Capital. 

The origin of this stupendous fire still remains a mystery. 

33 



514 CHARLESTON AND THE WAR. 

It is looked upon as one of tlie disasters of the war, although 
it cannot be shown that it had any connection with the war. 
When Eternal Justice decrees the punishment of a people, it 
sends not War alone, but also its sister terrors, Famine, Pesti- 
lence, and Fire. 

The ruins of Charleston are the most ])icturesque of any 
I saw in the South. The gardens and broken walls of many 
of its fine residences remain to attest their former elegance. 
Broad, semicircular flights of marble steps, leading up once 
to proud doorways, now conduct you, over their cracked and 
calcined slabs, to the level of high foundations swept of every- 
thing but the crushed fragments of their former superstruct- 
ures, with here and there a broken pillar, and here and there 
a windowless wall. Above the monotonous gloom of the ordi- 
nary ruins rise the churches, — the stone tower and roofless 
walls of the Catholic Cathedral, deserted and solitary, a roost 
for buzzards ; the burnt-out shell of the Circular Church, in- 
teresting by moonlight, with its dismantled columns still stand- 
ing, like those of an antique temj^le ; and others scarcely less 
noticeable. 

There are additional ruins scattered throughout the lower 
part of the city, a legacy of the Federal bombardment. The 
Scotch Church, a large structure, with two towers and a row 
of front pillars, was rendered untenantable by ugly breaches 
in its roof and walls, that have not yet been repaired. The 
old Custom-House and Post-Office building stands in an ex- 
ceedingly dilapidated condition, full of holes. Many other 
public and private buildings suffered no less. Some were quite 
■demolished ; while others have been patched up. After all, 
it would seem that the derisive laughter with Avhich the 
Charlestonians, according to contemporaneous accounts in 
their newspapers, received the Yankee shells, must have been 
of a forced or hysterical nature. Yet I found those who still 
maintained that the bombardment did not amount to much. 
A member of the city fire department said to me : — 

" But few fires were set by shells. There were a good 
many fires, but they were mostly set by mischief-makers. 



< 

Q 

G 

>^ 
W 

H 

O 

o 




BOMBARDMENT OF THE CITY. 615 

The object was to get us firemen down in slielling range. 
There was a spite against us, because we were exempt from 
military duty." 

The fright of the inhabitants, liowever, was generally 
frankly admitted. The greatest panic occurred immediately 
after the occupation of Morris Island by General Gillmore. 
" The first shells set the whole town in commotion. It looked 
like everybody was skedaddling. Some loaded up their goods, 
and left nothing but their empty houses. Others just packed 
up a few things in trunks and boxes, and abandoned the rest. 
The poor people and negroes took what they could carry on 
their backs or heads, or in their arms, and put for dear life. 
Some women put on all their dresses, to save them. For a while 
the streets were crowded with runaways, — hurrying, hustling, 
driving, — on horseback, in wagons, and on foot, — white folks, 
dogs, and niggers. But when it was found the shells only fell 
down town, the people got over their scare ; and many who 
went away came back again. Every once in a while, how- 
ever, the Yankees would appear to mount a new gun, or get 
a new gunner ; and the shells would fall higher up. That 
would start the skedaddling once more. One shell would be 
enough to depopulate a whole neighborhood." 

A Northern man, who was in Charleston tluring the war, 
told me that he was l}ang sick in a house which was struck 
by a shell early during the bombardment. " A darkey that 
w'as nursing me took fright and ran away, and left me in about 
as unpleasant a condition as I was ever in. I could n't stir 
from my bed, and there was much more danger that I might 
die from neglect, than from Gillmore's shells. Finally a friend 
found me out, and removed me to another house a few streets 
above. It was nine months before the shells reached us there." 

The shelling began in July, 1863, and Avas kept up pre.tty 
regulai'l}' until the surrender of the city, on the 18th of Feb- 
ruary, 1865. This last event occurred just four years after 
the inauguration of Jefferson Davis as President of the Con- 
federate States. IIow did the people of Charleston keep that 
last glorious anniversary ? 



516 CHARLESTON AND THE WAR. 

Sherman's northward marching army having flanked the 
city, its evacuation was not unexpected ; but when it came, 
confusion and dismay came with it. The Rebel troops, de- 
parting, adhered to their usual custom of leaving ruin behind 
them. They fired tlie upper part of the city, burning an im- 
mense quantity of cotton, with railroad buildings and military 
stores. While the half-famished poor were rushing early in 
the morning to secure a little of the Confederate rice in one 
of the warehouses, two hundred kegs of powder blew up, kill- 
ing and mutilatino; a lar^-e number of those unfortunate people. 
Here also it devolved upon the Union troops to save tlie city 
from the fires set by its own friends. 

Of the sixty-five thousand inhabitants which the city con- 
tained at the beginning of the secession war, only about ten 
thousand remained at tlie time of the occupation by our troops. 
Those belonged mostly to the poorer classes, who could not 
get away. Many people rushed in from the suburbs, got 
cauoht inside the intrenchments, and could not get out again. 
Others rushed out panic-stricken from the burning city, and 
when they Avished to return, found that they could not. 
Charleston, from the moment of its occupation, was a sealed 
citv. Families were divided. Husbands shut within the line 
of fortifications drawn across the neck of the peninsula, could 
not hear from their families in the country ; and wives in the 
country could not get news from their husbands. " It was 
two months before I could learn whether my husband was 
dead or alive," said a lady, who took refuge in the interior. 
And some who remained in Charleston, told me it was a 
month before they heard of the burning of Columbia ; that 
they could not even learn which way Sherman's army had 
gone. 



A MASS OF RUINS. 517 



CHAPTER LXXII. 

A VISIT TO FORT SUMTER. 

One morning I went on board the government supply 
steamer "Mayflower," plying between the city and the forts 
below. As we steamed down to the roAvs of piles, driven 
across the harbor to compel vessels to pass under the guns of 
the forts, I noticed that they were so nearly eaten off by 
worms that, had the war continued a year or two longer, it 
would have been necessary to replace them. There is in 
these Southern waters an insect very destructive to the Avood 
it comes in contact Avith. It cannot live in fresh water, and 
boats, the bottoms of which are not sheathed, or covered with 
tar, are taken occasionally up the rivers, to get rid of it. Only 
the palmetto is able to resist its ravages ; of the tough logs of 
which the wharves of Charleston are constructed. 

Fort Sumter loomed before us, an enormous mass of ruins. 
We approached on the northeast side, which appeared covered 
with blotches and patches of a most extraordinary description, 
commemorating the shots of our monitors. The notches in 
the half-demolished wall were mended with gabions. On the 
southeast side not an angle, not a square foot of the original 
octagonal wall remained, but in its place was an irregular 
steeply sloping bank of broken bricks, stones, and -sand, — a 
half-pulverized mountain, on Avhich no amount of shelling 
could have any other effect than to pulverize it still more. 

I could now readily understand the Rebel boast, that Fort 
Sumter, after each attack upon it, was stronger than ever. 
Stronger for defence, as far as its walls were concerned, it 
undoubtedly was ; but where were the double rows of port- 
holes for heavy ordnance, and the additional loopholes on the 
south side for musketry? Our guns had faithfully smashed 
everything of that kind within their range. 



518 A VISIT TO FORT SUMTER. 

On the northwest side, facing the city, the per})en(licular 
loftv wall stands in nearly its original condition, its scientific 
proportions, of stupendous solid masonry, astonishing us by 
their contrast with the other sides. Between this wall and 
the wreck of a Rebel steamer, shot through and sunk whilst 
bringing supplies to the fort, we landed. By flights of wooden 
steps we reached the summit, and looked down into the huge 
crater within. This is a sort of irregular amphitheatre, with 
sloping banks of gabions and rubbish on all sides save one. 
On the southeast side, where the exterior of the fort received 
the greatest damage from the guns on Morris Island, the inte- 
rior received the least. There are no casemates left, ex- 
cept on that side. In the centre stands the flagstaff, bearing 
aloft the starry symbol of the national ]iower, once humbled 
here, and afterwards trailed long through bloody dust, to float 
a<ya\n higher and haughtier than ever, on those rebellious 
shores. Who, that loves his country, can look upon it there 
without a thrill ? 

The fort is built upon a mole, which is flooded by high- 
water. It was half-tide that morning, and climbing down the 
slope of the southeast embankment, I walked ui)on the beach 
below, — or rather upon the litter of old iron that strewed it 
thick as pebble-stones. It was diflicult to step without placing 
the foot upon a rusty cannon-ball or the fragment of a shell. 
The curling weaves broke upon beds of these iron debris, 
extending far down out of sight into the sea. I suggested to 
an officer that this would be a valuable mine to Avork, and 
was told that the right to collect the old iron around the fort 
had already been sold to a speculator for thirty thousand dol- 
lars. 

The following statement of the cost to the United States of 
some of the forts seized by the Rebels, and of others they 
would have been glad to seize, but could not see their way 
clear to do so, will interest a few readers. 

Fort Moultrie, $87,601. (Evacuated by Major Anderson 
Dec. 26th, 1860.) 

Castle Pinckney, $53,809. (Seized by South Carolina 
State troops, Dec. 27th, 1860.) 



COST OF FORTS. -HEROES OF THE WAR. 519 

Fort Sumter, $977,404. 

Fort Pulaski, at the mouth of the Savannah River, $988,- 
859. (Seized by order of Governor Brown, Jan. 3d, 1861.) 

Fort Morgan, Mobile Harbor, $1,242,552. (Seized Jan, 
4th, 1861.) 

Fort Gaines, opposite, $221,500. (Same fate.) 

Fort Jackson, on the jNIississippi, below New Orleans, $837,- 
608. Its fellow. Fort St. Philip, $258,734. (Both seized 
Jan. 10th, 1861.) 

Fort Warren, Boston Harbor, $1,208,000. (Not conve- 
nient for the Rebels to appropriate.) 

Fortress Monroe, the most expensive, as it is the largest of 
our forts, $2,476,771. (Taken by Jeff Davis in May, 1865, 
under peculiar circumstances, and still occupied by him at this 
date, May, 1866.) 

I found eighty-five United States soldiers in Sumter: a 
mere handful, yet they were five more than the garrison that 
held it at the time of Beauregard's bombardment in April, 
1861. My mind went back to those earlier days, and to that 
other little band. How anxiously we had watched the news- 
papers, week after week, to see if the Rebels would dare to 
execute their threats ! Even the children caught the excite- 
ment, and asked eagerly, as papa came home at night with the 
news, " Is Fort Sumter attackted ? " At last the defiant act 
was done, and what a raging, roaring fire it kindled all over 
the land ! How our hearts throbbed in sympathy with Major 
Anderson and his seventy-nine heroes ! Major, Colonel, Gen- 
eral Anderson, — well might he step swiftly up the degrees of 
rank, for he was already atop of our hearts. 

It was so easy for a man to blaze forth into sudden glory of 
renown at that time ! One true, loyal, courageous deed, and 
fame was secure. But when the hurricane howl of the storm 
was at its height, when the land was all on fire with such 
deeds, glory Avas not so cheap. Only the taller flame could 
make itself distinguished, only the more potent voice be heard 
amid the roar. So many a hero of many a greater exploit 
than Anderson's passed on unnoted. 



520 A VISIT TO FORT SUMTER, 

And looking back coolly at the event from the walls of 
Sumter to-day, it is not easy to understand how a patriot and 
a soldier, who knew his duty, could have sat quiet in his for- 
tress while Rebel batteries were rising all around him. He 
was acting on the defensive, you say, — waiting for the Rebels 
to commence hostilities. But hostilities had already begun. 
The first spadeful of earth thrown up, to protect the first 
Rebel gun, within range of Sumter, was an act of war upon 
Sumter. To wait until surrounded by a ring of fire, which 
could not be resisted, before opening the guns of the fort, 
appears, by the light both of military duty and of common 
sense, absurd. But fortunately something else rules, in a 
great revolution, besides military duty and common sense ; 
aiid in the plan of that Providence which shapes our Avays, I 
suppose Major Anderson did the best and only thing that was 
to be done. Besides, forbearance, to the utmost verge of that 
virtue, and sometimes a little beyond, was the policy of the 
government he served. 

Reembarking on the steamer, and running over to Morris 
Island, I noticed that Sumter, from that side, looked like noth- 
ing but a solitary sandy bluff, heaved up in the middle of the 
harbor. 



STORY OF GENERAL S 'S CAPTURE. 521 



CHAPTER LXXIII. 

A PRISON AND A PRISONER. 

" Is tliis your first visit to Charleston ? " I asked General 
S , one day as we dined together. 

" My first visit," he replied, " occurred in the summer of 
1864, considerably against my inclination. I was lodged at 
the expense of the Confederate Government in the Work- 
House, — not half as comfortable a place as this hotel ! " 

Both visits were made in the service of the United States 
Government ; but under what different circumstances ! Then, 
a helpless, insulted prisoner; now, he came in a capacity 
which brought to him as humble petitioners some of the most 
rebellious citizens of those days. When sick and in prison, 
they did not minister unto him ; but since he sat in an office 
of public power, nothing could exceed their polite, hat-in- 
hand attentions. 

Dinner over, he proposed that we should go around and 
look at his old quarters in the Work-House. I gladly as- 
sented, and, on the way, drew from him the story of his 
capture. 

He was taken prisoner at the battle of July 22d, before 
Atlanta, and placed on a train, with a number of other pris- 
oners, to be conveyed to Macon. 

" When we were about ten or a dozen miles from Macon, 
I went and sat on the platform with the guard. To prevent 
his suspecting my design, I told him I was disabled by rheu- 
matism, and complained of pain and weakness in my back. 
He presently leaned against the car, and closed his eyes ; like 
everybody else after the battles of July, he was pretty well 
used up, and in a few minutes he appeared to be asleep. His 
gun was cocked, ready to shoot any prisoner that attempted 



522 A PRISON AND A PRISONER. 

to escape ; and I quietly took the cap oflP, without disturbing 
him. Then I did n't dare wait a minute for a better oppor- 
tunity, but jumped when I could. We were five or six miles 
from INIacon, and the train was running about ten miles an 
hour. As I took my leap, I felt my hat flying from my head, 
and instinctively put up my hand and caught it, knowing if it 
was lost it might give a clew that would lead to my recapture. 
All this passed through my mind while I went rolling down an 
embankment eighteen or twenty feet high. I thought I never 
should strike the bottom. When I did, the concussion Avas 
so great that I lay under a fence, nearly senseless, for I don't 
know how long : I could n't have moved, even if I had known 
a minute's delay would cause me to be retaken. 

" After a while I recovered, got up, crossed the fields, and 
found a road on the edge of some woods. It was then just at 
dusk. I walked all night, and in the morning found myself 
where I started. I had been walking around a hill, on a road 
made by woodmen. 

" I was very tired, but I made up my mind I must leave 
that place. I got the points of the compass by the light in the 
east, and started to walk in a northerly direction, hoping to 
strike our lines somewhere near Atlanta. I soon passed a 
field of squealing hogs. I ought to have taken warning by 
their noise ; but I kept on, and presently met a man with a 
bag of corn on his shoulder, going to feed them. I was walk- 
ing fast, with my coat on my arm ; and we passed each other 
without saying a word. My whole appearance was calculated 
to excite suspicion. Besides, one might know by my uniform 
that I was a Yankee officer. I suppose, by the law of self- 
defence, I ought to have turned about and put him out of the 
way of doing me any mischief. It would have been well for 
me if I had. I was soon out of sight ; but I could hear the 
hogs squealing still, so I knew he had not stopped to give 
them the corn ; I knew he had dropped his bag and run, as 
well as if I had watched him. 

" I crossed the fields to the road, where I saw somebody 
coming very fast on a horse. I hid in some weeds, and pres- 



HUNTED BY BLOODHOUNDS. — IN TROUBLE. 523 

ently saw this same man riding by at a sliarp gallop towards a 
neighboring plantation. 

" Then I knew 1 had a hard time before me. I first sat 
doAvn and rubbed pine leaves and tobacco on the soles of my 
boots ; then took once more to the fields. It was n't an hour 
before I heard the blood-hounds on my track. I can never 
tell what I suffered during the next three days. I did not 
sleep at all ; I travelled almost incessantly. Sometimes when 
I stopped to rest the dogs would come in sight ; and often I 
could hear them when I did not see them. I baffled them 
continually by changing my course, walking in streams, and 
rubbing tobacco and pine leaves on my boot-soles." 

" What did you live on all this time ? " 

" I will tell you what I ate : three crackers, which I had 
with me when I jumped from the cars, one water-melon, and 
some raw green corn I picked in a field. The third day I 
got rid of the dogs entirely. I saw a lonely looking house on 
a hill, and went to it. It was occupied by a widow. I asked 
for something to eat, and she cooked me a dinner while I kept 
watch for the dogs. Perhaps she was afraid to do differently ; 
but she appeared very kind. When the dinner was ready I 
was so sick from excitement and exhaustion that I could n't 
eat. I managed to force down an egg and a spoonful of peas, 
and that was all. The Rebels had taken my money, and I 
could pay her only with thanks. 

" I travelled nearly all that night again. Towards morning 
I lay by in a canebrake, and slept a little. It was raining 
hard. The next day I started on again. As I was crossing 
a road, suddenly a man came round a steep bank, on horse- 
back. I did n't see him until he was right upon me. I felt 
desperate. He asked me some question, and I gave him a 
surly answer. I thought I would n't leave the road until he 
had gone on ; but he checked his horse, and rode along by 
my side. 

" ' You look like you are in trouble,' he said. 

" ' I am,' I said. 

" ' Can I be of any service to you ? ' 



624 A PRISON AND A PRISONER. 

" ' Yes. I Avant to go to Crawford's Station. How far is 
it?' 

" He said it was three miles, and told me the Avay to go. 
Crawford's is only fifteen miles from Macon ; so you see I had 
not got far whilst running from the dogs. 

" Suddenly a terrible impulse took me. I turned upon him ; 
I felt fierce ; I could have murdered him, if necessary. 

" ' I told you a lie,' said I. ' I am not going to Crawford's. 
I am a Federal soldier trying to escape.' 

" He turned pale. ' I am the provost-marshal of this dis- 
trict,' he said, after we had looked each other full in the face 
for about a minute, ' and do you know it is my duty to arrest 
you?' 

" Then a power came upon me such as I never felt before 
in my life ; and I talked to him. I laid open the Avhole ques- 
tion of the war with a clearness and force which astonishes me 
now when I think of it. I believe I convinced him. Then I 
told him that if / had been doing my duty, it was Ids duty to 
help me escape, instead of arresting me. And then I prophe- 
sied : — ' This war is going to end,' I said ; ' and it is going to 
end in only one way. As true as there is a heaven above us, 
your Confederate Government is going to be wiped from the 
earth ; and then where will you be ? then what will you think 
of the duty of one man to arrest another whose only fault is 
that he has been fighting for his country ? The time is com- 
ing, sir, when it may make a mighty difference with you, 
whether you help me now, or send me to a Rebel prison.' 

" He looked at me in perfect amazement. He did not an- 
swer me a word ; only when I got through he said, ' I 'd give 
a thousand dollars if I had not met you ! ' I got down to 
drink from a ditch by the road. Then he said, ' I 've got a 
canteen at the liouse which you might have.' That was the 
first intimation I received that he woiald help me. 

" He told me to stay where I was and he Avould bring me 
somethino; better to drink than ditch-water. I looked him 
through. ' I '11 trust you,' I said ; for no man ever looked as 
he did who was n't sincere. Yet there was danger he might 



A FRIEND IN NEED. — RECAPTURE. 525 

change liis mind ; and I waited -with great anxiety to see 
■whether he woukl brino- the canteen or a c;nard of soldiers. 
At kist he came — with the canteen ! It was full of the most 
delicious spring water. I can't begin to tell you how good 
that water tasted ! The nectar of the gods was nothing to it. 

" That night he hid me between two bales of cotton in his 
gin-house. He brought me bacon and biscuits enough to last 
me two or three days. What was more to the purpose, he 
gave me a suit of citizens' clothes to put on. Wiiile it was 
yet early, he brought me out, and went with me a mile or so 
on my way. He gave me the names of several citizens of the 
country, so that I could claim to be going to see them if any- 
body questioned me. I carried my uniform with me tied up 
in a bundle, which I intended to drop in the first piece of 
woods at a safe distance from his house. I never parted with 
a man under more affecting circumstances. An enemy, he 
had risked his life to save me, — for we both knew that if the 
part he took in my escape was discovered, his reward would 
be the halter. 

" I had a valuable gold watch, which the Rebels had not 
taken from me, and I urged him to accept it. ' If I am re- 
captured,' I said, ' some Confederate soldier will get it. If I 
escape, it will be the greatest source of satisfaction I can have 
to know that you keep this token of my gratitude.' At last 
he consented to accept it, and we parted. 

" I travelled due north all that day, and lay by at night in 
a canebrake. How it rained again ! The next day, in avoid- 
ing the main roads, as I had been careful to do whenever I 
could, I got entangled among streams that put into the Ocmul- 
gee River. I came to a large one, and as I was turning back 
from it, I saw a squad of soldiers going down to it to bathe. I 
was in a complete cut de sac, and I must either run for the river 
or meet them. I put on a bold face, and went out towards 
them. As it was an extraordinary situation for a stranger to 
be in, they naturally suspected everything was not right. They 
asked me where I was from, and where I was going. I said 
I came from near Macon, and that I was going to visit my 



626 A PRISON AND A PEISONER. 

uncle, Dr. Moore, in De Kulb County. I suppose my speech 
betrayed me. They did n't suspect me of being an escaped 
prisoner ; but their captain said, ' I beheve you 're a damned 
Yankee spy.' 

" That sealed my fate. I was taken to Forsytli, on the 
Macon and Western Raih'oad, where I was finally recognized 
by the guard I had escaped from. 

" While I was sitting in tlie depot, in my citizens' clothes, a 
half-drunken Confederate soldier came in, flourishing a loaded 
pistol, and inquiring for the ' damned Yankee.' ' What do 
you want of him ? ' I asked. ' To shoot his heart out ! ' said 
he. ' What ! ' said I, ' would you shoot a prisoner ? I hope 
you are too chivalrous to do that.' ' It 's a part of my chivalry 
to kill every Yankee I find,' said he. ' Just show him to me, 
and you'll see.' ' I'll show him to you. I am the man. Now 
let 's see you shoot him.' 

" He swore I was joking. He would n't believe I was the 
Yankee, even Avhen the guard told him I was ; and he went 
blustering away again. I suspect that he was a fellow of more 
talk than courage. 

" Meanwhile Mr. T , who gave me my citizens' dress, 

heard of my recapture, and came over to Forsyth, in great anx- 
iety lest I should betray him. I pretended not to recognize 
him, but gave him to understand by a look that his secret was 
safe. He said it was very important to ascertain how I came 
by my clotlies, and questioned me. I said I obtained them of 
a good and true man, whom I should never name to his injury; 
but that I would tell where I left my uniform, because I wished 
to get it again. When I described the spot, he said he believed 
he recognized it, and, if so, that it was on one of his neighbors' 
plantations. He sent to search, and the next day I I'eceived 
my uniform. I forgot to state that when I was retaken, my 
drawers were mildewed from my lying out in the canebrakes 
in the rain. 

" From Forsyth I was sent to the stockade at Macon, where 
I found my companions from whom I separated when I jumped 
from the car. I had n't been there three days when I formed 



" TUNNELLING " — THE WORK-HOUSE. '527 

a new plan of escape. I got the other prisoners enlisted in it, 
and we went to tunnelling the ground under the stockade. 
Each man Avorked with a knife, or a piece of hoop, — any- 
thino; that he could scratch with, — and filled a haversack 
with the dirt, which was brought out and scattered over the 
ground. As prisoners exposed to the weather were always 
burrowing in caves, our design was not suspected. It was 
exceedingly toilsome work, and it was carried on principally 
by night. You would be astonished to see how much a man 
will accomplish, with not much besides his finger-nails to do 
with, when his liberty is at stake. We worked six tunnels, 
three feet high, and extending well out beyond the stockade. 
The very night when we were going to open them up on the 
outside, one of the prisoners, a Kentuckian, betrayed us. If 
we had found out who he was, he would n't have lived a min- 
ute. Then, just as I was maturing another plan, I was sent 
here." 

We were at the Work-House, a castle-like building, flanked 
by two tall towers ; built of brick, but covered with a cement 
in imitation of freestone. Before the war it was used as a 
safe place of deposit for that description of property known 
as slaves. Negroes for sale and awaiting the auction-day, ne- 
groes who had or had not merited chastisement not convenient 
for their city masters or mistresses to administer at home, ne- 
groes who had run away, or were in danger of running away, 
were sent here for safe-keeping or scientific flogging, as the 
case might be. It was a mere jail, with cells and bolts and 
bars, like any other. During the war, the negroes were trans- 
ferred to another building near by, and the " Work-House " 
became a Yankee prison, in which officers were confined. 

In the same block M'as the City Jail, likewise turned into 
a prison for Federal officers. The Roper and Marine Hospi- 
tals, not far off", were put to the same use. 

It was a dungeon-like entrance, dark and low and damp, 
to which we gained admittance through a heavy door that 
creaked harshly on its hinges. 

" When I first entered here," said General S , " a cold 



528 A PRISON AND A PRISONER. 

shudder ran over me. I looked around for a cliance to escape, 
and saw behind and on each side of me two rows of bayonets, 
not encouraoing to the most enterprising man ! " 

We walked through the empty, foul, and dismal passages, up- 
stairs and down-stairs ; visited the various cells, the old negro 
whipping-room, the room in which General Stoneman, the 
captured raider, was confined ; and at length came to a room 
in the second story of the west tower, Avhich was occupied by 

General S and a dozen more Federal officers. There 

were several wooden bunks in it, on which they slept ; from 
amon(T which the General singled out his own. " This is the 
old thing I lay on ! Here is my mark ! " 

He looked up : " Do you see that patched place in the roof? 
A shell came in there one day, when we were lying on our 
bunks. It made these holes in the floor. But it hurt no one." 

He took me to the window. " That other tower was 
knocked by a shell. It was one of our amusements to watch 
the shells as they came up from INIorris Island, rose over the 
ruined Cathedral yonder, and passed diagonally across these 
streets, until they fell. They were dropping all the time ; 
but the gunners knew where we were, and avoided us. At 
night we could watch them from the time they rose, until, 
after describing a beautiful curve, they fell and exploded. 
Our o-uard Avas much more afraid of them than we were. 

& . - 

Every day there was a fire set by them. This burnt section 
near the Work-House was set by a shell while I was here." 

We went down into the yard. " I never got outside of this 
enclosure but once. Then I went through that gate for a load 
of wood. I had a taste of the pure air, and I can't tell you 
how good it was ! It exhilarated me like wine." 

On the other side of the yard was the building to which the 
negroes were transferred. "Every day we could hear the 
yells of those who were being whipped." 

In the yard is a wooden tower of observation, which we 
climbed, and had a view of the city. It was occupied as a 
lookout by the Rebel guard. 

" Near the foot of this tower," said General S , " was 



PLAXS OF ESCAPE. 529 

a small mountain of ofFal, — r fragments of food, old bones, and 
the like, thrown out from the prison ; a horrible heap, — all a 
moving mass of maggots, — left to engender disease. Luckily 
for us, the men on guard were made sick by it, and it Avas 
finally removed. 

" The officer who had control of the prison has been ap- 
pointed United States Marshal for the State of South Caro- 
lina, for his kindness to us," he continued. " It is strange I 
never heard of his kindness when I was here. We were not 
whipped like the negroes ; but in other respects our treatment 
was no better than they received. Out of curiosity I once 
measured my rations for ten days, and counted just fifty-five 
spoonfuls, — five and a half spoonfuls a day ! 

" I believe the prisoners at the Roper Hospital were treated 
very well. They had the run of the garden, and the privilege 
of tradinn; with the nem'oes throuo-h the fence. But those 
who went there took an oath not to try to get away. I could 
have gone there, if I would have consented to take such an 
oath. But I would n't sell the hope of escaping at any price. 

" I had n't been here a week before we had three schemes 
on foot for getting out. One was to cut through a board in 
the yard fence ; but we found we were watched too closely 
for that. Another was to make a tunnel to the sewer in 
the street in front of the prison, as I will show you." 

Descending the tower, he took me to an iron grating that 
covered a dark caA'ity in the ground under one of the prison 
passages. 

"Here is a large cistern, Avhich we had exhausted of its 
contents. One day I pulled up this grate, dropped down into 
the hole, lighted a candle which I had in my pocket, and made 
an exploration. On coming out I gave a favorable report, and 
that niirht we went to dio-sino:. We tunnelled first throuo;h 
the cistern wall, then through the foundation wall of the 
prison, and got into the sand under the street. We half filled 
the old cistern with the stones and dirt Ave dug out with sticks, 
old bones, and any bits of iron we could lay our hands on. 
We worked like rats. Two or three of us were constantly 
31 



530 A PRISON AND A rRISOXER. 

in the tunnel, while others kept watch above. A friend out- 
side had given us information with regai-d to the position of 
the sewer ; we had already struck it, and the next night we 
should have got into it, and into the street beyond the prison 
guard, when once more we were betrayed by the same Ken- 
tuckian who exposed our scheme at Macon. This time we 
found him out, and he had to be removed from the prison to 
save his life. 

" We had our third and great plan in reserve. 

" There were at that time six hundred prisoners in the 
Work-House, three hundred in the City Jail adjoining, and 
one thousand in the Roper and Marine Hospitals, within an 
arrow's shot. These were oflEicers. At the Race - Course 
prison, on the outskirts of the town, there were four thousand 
enlisted men. Our guard, here at the Work-House, consisted 
of three reliefs of thirty-three men each. They were mere 
militia, that had never seen service. Old soldiers like us were 
not afraid of such fellows ; and we knew that if we made a 
demonstration they would be afraid of us. Our plan was, for 
two prisoners, at a given signal, to leap on the back of each 
one of the guard in the prison, and disarm him. Possibly 
some of us might get hurt, but we were pretty sure of suc- 
cess. Then, with the arms thus secured, we could easily cap- 
ture the second relief guard as it marched in. Then we were 
to rush out immediately and seize the third relief. This would 
give us ninety-nine guns. With these we were to march di- 
rectly upon the arsenal, capture it, and provide ourselves with 
all the arms and ammunition we needed. Then to release 
the thirteen hundred officers at the jail and hospitals, and the 
four thousand privates at the Race-Course, would have been 
easy ; and we should have had a force of near six thousand 
men. With these, the city would have been in our power. 

" Our plan then was, to set fires clear across it, from river 
to river, to make a barricade of burning buildings against the 
Rebel artillexy that would have been coming down to look 
after us. Of course the panic and confusion of the citizens 
would have been extreme, and the military would hardly have 



EXCHANGED. — POETIC JUSTICE. 531 

known what Ave were about ; Avliilc our plans Averc laid Avith 
mathematical precision. Our friend outside had smu<^o-led in 
to us, done up in balls of bread, a map of Charleston, Avith 
complete explanations of CA^ery point about AAdiich we needed 
information ; and through him aa^o had connnunicated Avith our 
friends on Morris Island. We Avere to seize the shipping, 
capture the Avater-batteries, and hold the loAver part of the 
toAA^n until our friends, under cover of a furious bombardment, 
could come to our assistance. My Avhole heart Avas in this 
scheme, and the time Avas set for its execution. The A'ery day 
before the day appointed, I was exchanged, together Avith the 
principal leaders in it. To be let out just on the eve of Avhat 
promised to be such a brilliant exploit, Avas almost a disappoint- 
ment." 

" I am still interested to know one thing," I said. " Have 
you ever heard from the Rebel Avho gave you the citizen's 
dress ? " 

" After the breaking up of the rebellion I wrote to him, 
making inquiries concerning his condition. He replied, saying 
that he had come out of the Avar a poor man, and that he did 
not know hoAv he Avas to relieve the destitution of his family. 
I immediately made application in his behalf to the "War De- 
partment, and obtained for him a pardon, and a place under 
the government, in his own county, Avhich he now fills, and 
which yields him a liberal income." 



532 THE SEA ISLANDS. 



CHAPTER LXXIV. 

THE SEA ISLANDS. 

The plantation negi'o of the great cotton and rice-growing 
States is a far more ignorant and degraded creature than the 
negro of Virginia and Tennessee. This difference is traceable 
to a variety of causes. First, the farmers of the slave-breeding 
States were formerly accustomed to select, from among their 
servants, the most stupid and vicious class, to be sold in the 
Southern market. To the same destination went all tlie more 
modern importations of raw savages from the coast of Africa. 
Tlie negi'o is susceptible to the influences of civiHzation ; and 
in the border States his intelligence was developed by much 
intercourse with the white race. His veins also received a 
generous infusion of the superior blood. The same may bo 
said of house and town servants througliout the Soutli. The 
slaves of large and isolated plantations, however, enjoyed but 
limited advantages of this sort : seeino- little of civilized societv 
beyond the overseer, whose lessons w^ere not tliose of grace, 
and the poor whites around them, scarcely more elevated in 
the scale of being than themselves. 

In South Carolina the results of these combined causes are 
more striking than in any other State. The excess of her 
black population, and the unmitigated character of slavery 
within her borders, afford perhaps a sufficient explanation of 
this fact. In 1860 she had 291,388 white, 402,406 slave, and 
9,914 free colored inhabitants. Even these fio-ures do not 
indicate the overwhelming predominance of black numbers in 
certain localities. In the poorer districts, as counties are here 
called, the whites are in a majority ; while in certain others 
there were three and four times as many negroes as white per- 
sons. Herded together in great numbers, and worked like 



NEGRO SETTLEMENTS. 533 

cattle, the habits of these wretched people, their comforts and 
enjoyments, were little above those of the brute. Under such 
circumstances it was hardly possible for them to make any 
moral or intellectual advancement, but often, even to the third 
generation, they remained as ignorant as when brought from 
the wilds of Africa. 

It was owing much no doubt to this excessive black popula- 
tion and its degraded character, that labor appeared to be more 
disoro-anized, and the freedmen in a worse condition in South 
Carolina, than elsewhere. The Sea-Island question, however, 
had had a very marked and injurious effect npon labor in the 
State, and should be taken into consideration. 

The most ignorant of the blacks have certain true and strong 
instincts, which stand them in the place of actual knowledge. 
Their faith in Providence has a depth and integrity which 
shames the haltino; belief of the more enlio-htened Christian. 
Next to that, and strangely blended Avith it, is the faith in the 
government which has brought them out of bondage. Along 
Avith these goes the simple and strong conviction, that, in order 
to be altogether free, and to enjoy the fruits of their freedom, 
they must have homes of their owai. The government en- 
couraged them in that belief and hope. Conscious of their 
own loyalty, and having a clear understanding of the disloy- 
alty of their masters, they expected confidently, long after the 
war had closed, that the forfeited lands of these masters would 
be divided among them. It was only after earnest and per- 
sistent efforts on the part of the officers of the Bureau, to con- 
vince them that this hope was futile, that they finally aban- 
doned it. 

But by this time it had become known among the freed peo- 
ple of South Carolina and Georgia, that extensive tracts of 
land on the coast of these States had been set aside by military 
authority for their use. There the forty thousand bondmen 
who followed Sherman out of Georgia, together with other 
thousands who had preceded them, or come after, were estab- 
lished upon independent farms, in self-governing communities 
from which all white intruders were excluded. These settle- 



634 THE SEA ISLANDS. 

ments -were chiefly upon the rich and delightful Sea Islands, 
which the Rebel owners had abandoned, and which now be- 
came tlie paradise of the freedmen's hopes. "Go there," they 
said, " and every man can pick out his lot of forty acres, and 
have it secured to him." 

With such fancies in his brain, the negro of the interior 
was not likely to remain contented on the old plantation, after 
learnincv that no acre of it was to be given him. He Avas nat- 
urally averse to accepting a white master, when he might be 
his own master elsewhere. His imaginative soul sang too, in 
its rude way : — 

" Oh, bad we some sweet little isle of our own, • 
In a blue summer ocean, far off and alone ! " 

And so the emigration to the coast set in. 

In October, 1865, orders were issued that no more allot- 
ments of land should be made to the Freedmen. But this did 
not avail to stop entirely the tide of emigration ; nor did it 
inspire with contentment those who remained in the interior. 
" If a freedmnn has forty acres on the coast," they reasoned, 
" why should n't we have as much here ? " Hence one of the 
most serious troubles the ofiicers of the Bureau had to contend 
against. 

In October, General Howard visited the Sea Islands with 
the intention of restoring to the pardoned owners the lands on 
which freedmen had been settled, under General Sherman's 
order. According to the President's theor}^, a pardon entitled 
the person paixloned to the immediate restoration of his prop- 
erty. Hence arose a conflict of authority and endless confu- 
sion. Secretary Stanton had approved of Sherman's order, 
and earnestly advised the freedmen to secure homesteads un- 
der the government's protection. General Saxton, Assistant 
Commissioner of the Bureau, had in every way encouraged 
them to .do the same. So had General Hunter. Chief Jus- 
tice Chase had given them similar counsel. General How- 
ard found the land-owners urgent in pressing their claims, 
and the freedmen equally determined in resisting them. 



CONFLICTING CLAIMS. — THE DIFFICULTY. 535 

Impressed hy the immense difliculty of tlie problem, he post- 
poned its immediate solution by a compromise, leaving the 
main question to be settled by Congress. Congress settled it, 
after a fashion, in the provisions of the Freedmen's Bureau 
Bill ; but that, in consequence of the President's veto, did not 
become a law. 

By General Howard's plan, abandoned lands on which there 
■were no freedmen settled under Sherman's order, or only " a 
few," were to be restored to pardoned owners. Other estates, 
on which there were more than " a few," were also to be 
restored, provided arrangements could be made, satisfactory to 
both the owners and the freedmen. So nothing was settled. 
The owners claimed the lands, and Avished the freedmen to 
make contracts to work for them. The freedmen claimed the 
lands, and positively refused to make contracts. 

The freedmen's crops for the past year had generally proved 
failures, or nearly so. Their friends argued that this result 
was owing to causes that could not be controlled, — the lack 
of capital, of seed, of mules and farming implements, and 
the lateness of the season when most of them commenced 
work. The ov.mei's of the lands contended that the negro, 
mider the best conditions, could not make a crop of cotton. 
The truth probably lies between these two extremes. The 
freedmen lacked experience in management, as well as plant- 
ing capital ; and I have no doubt but many of them thought 
more of a gun and a fishing-rod, sources of a ]ileasure so new 
to them, than of hard work in the field, which was anything 
but a novelty. 

I regret to add that the freedmen's prospects for the coming 
year did not appear flattering. The uncertainty of their titles 
caused them deep trouble and discouragement, and they did 
not exhibit much energy in improving lands which might be 
taken from them at any moment. The feeling, " This is my 
home and my children's," seemed no longer to insj)ire them. 
The majority were at work ; but others were sullenly waiting 
to see Avhat the government would do. 

This whole question is one of great embarrassment and 



536 THE SEA ISLANDS. 

difficulty, and it is not easy to say how it should be decided. 
The plan proposed by Congress, of securing to the freedmen 
the possession of the lands for three years, did not seem to me 
a very wise one. It would take them about three years, 
under the most favorable circumstances, to overcome the ob- 
stacles against which their poverty and inexperience would 
have to struggle ; and the knowledge that, after all, those 
homes were not to be permanently their own, would tend to 
discourage industry and promote vagabondism. It would be 
better to remove them at once, if they are to be removed at 
all ; but then the question presents itself, can a great and mag- 
nanimous government afford to break its pledges to these help- 
less and unfortunate people ? 

On the other hand, to make their titles perpetual, is to give 
over to uncertain cultivation, by a race supposed to exist only 
for the convenience of another, the most valuable cotton-lands 
of those States, — for it is here alone that the incomparable 
long-fibred "Sea-Island" staple is produced, — a conclusion 
deemed inadmissible and monstrous, especially by the Rebel 
owners of the lands. 



XEGROES UNDER COAL- SHEDS. 537 



CHAPTER LXXV. 

A VISIT TO JAMES ISLAND. 

A COMPANY of South Carolina planters, who were going 
over to look at their estates on James Island, and learn if any 
arrangements could be made with the freedmen, invited me to 
accompany them ; and on the morning of the day appointed, 
I left my hotel for the purpose. 

Finding I was too early for the boat, I took a stroll along 
the wdiarves, and visited the colonies of homeless plantation 
negroes who had sought shelter under the open coal-sheds. 

There were at that time in Charleston fifteen hundred freed 
people of this class waiting for transportation back to their 
former homes, or to the plantations of new masters who had 
hired them. A more wretched and pitiable herd of human 
beings I never saw ; nor had I witnessed anything like it out 
of South Carolina. ^ 

Families were cooking and eating their breakfasts around 
smoky fires. On all sides were heaps of their humble house- 
hold goods, — tubs, pails, pots and kettles, sacks, beds, barrels 
tied up in blankets, boxes, baskets, bundles. They had 
brought their live-stock with them ; hens were scratching, 
pigs squealing, cocks crowing, and starved puppies whining. 

One colony was going to Beaufort. " Mosser told we to 
go back. We 'se no money, and we 'se glad to git on gov- 
'ment kindness, to git off." But the government was not yet 
ready to send them. 

Many seemed deeply to regret that they were so much 
trouble to the government. " We wants to git away to work 
on our own hook. It 's not a good time at all here. We does 
nothing but suifer from smoke and ketch cold. We wants to 
begin de planting business." 



638 A VISIT TO JAMES ISLAND. 

Anotlier colony had been two -weeks waiting for transpor- 
tation back to their okl homes in Colleton District. Their 
sufferings were very great. Said an old woman, with a shawl 
over her head : " De jew and de air hackles we more 'n any- 
ting. De rain Tjeats on we, and de sun shines we out. My 
chil'n so hungry dey can't hole up. De Gov'ment, he han't 
gib wo nottin'. Said dey would put we on board Saturday. 
Some libs and some dies. If dey libs dey libs, and if dey dies 
dey dies." Such was her dim philosophy. I tried to converse 
with others, who spoke a wild jargon j^eculiar to the planta- 
tions, of which I understood hardly one word in ten. 

General Scott, who had recently succeeded General Saxton 
as Assistant Commissioner of the Bureau in South Carolina, 
■was hastening measures for the relief of these poor people, 
and to preveiit any more from coming to the city. 

I walked around by the delightful residences on East Bay 
and South Bay, commanding fine views of the harbor and 
Ashley River ; and reached the wharf from which we were 
to embark. 

Opposite lay James Island, with its marshy borders, and Its 
dark-green line of pines. Boats — mostly huge cypress dug- 
outs, manned by negroes — were passing to and fro, some 
coming from the island with loads of wood, others returning, 
heavily laden, with families of freedmen going to their new 
homes, and with household goods and supplies. 

" This is interesting," said one of the planters, whom I 
found in waiting. " That wood comes from our plantations. 
The negroes cut it off, bring it over to the city, and perhaps 
sell it to the actual owners of the land they have taken it 
from. We are buying our own wood of the darkey squatters. 
The negroes are still going to the island, picking their lands, 
and stakino; out fortv-acre lots, thouo-h the Bureau is mvinn- 
no more titles." 

A large cypress dug-out came to the wharf, rowed by a 
black man and his son. 

" These boats all belonged to the planters, till the negroes 
took possession of them. Now a man has to hire a passage 



PLANTERS CAPTURED BY NEGROES. 539 

in Ills own canoe, and like as any way of ono of his OAvn 
negroes." 

The grim, silent boatman seemed to nnderstand Avell that 
he was master of the situation. There were seven individuals 
in our party, and his charge for taking us over to the IsLand 
and back was ten dollars. He made no words about it : Ave 
could accept his terms, or find another boat. The gravity 
and taciturnity of this man indicated decided character, and 
no mean capacity for self-ownership. As he and his son rowed 
us across the river, he attended strictly to his business, hearing 
the talk of the planters about the race he represented — talk 
by no means complimentary — with an impenetrability of 
countenance quite astonishing. 

This was the third visit of the planters to the island, since 
the war. On the first occasion, they were met by a party of 
negroes, about forty in number, who rushed down to the land- 
ing, armed with guns, and drove them away, with threats to 
kill them if they came to disturb them in their homes again ; 
whereupon they discreetly withdrew. On their second visit 
• they were accompanied by Captain Ketchum, special agent of 
the Bureau for the Sea Islands, to whose influence they prob- 
ably owed their lives. They were met as before, surrounded 
by fierce black ffices and levelled guns, captured, and not per- 
mitted to regain their boat until their leaders, who could read 
a little, became satisfied, from an examination of the Captain's 
papers, that he was an officer of the government. " Wo 
are ready to do anything for gov'ment," they said. " But wo 
have nothing to do with these men." 

They asked the Captain, who were the real owners of the 
land, — they who had been placed there by the government, or 
the planters who had been fighting against the government ? 

" That is uncertain," replied the conscientious Captain. 

The planters, who had hoped for a different reply, well 
aware that the negroes could not be brought to terms without 
a positive assurance from an officer of the Bureau that they 
had no good title to the lands, were very much disgusted. 
" We may as well go back now," said they. And scarcely 



540 A VISIT TO JAMES ISLAND. 

any effort was made to induce the negroes to abandon their 
claims and make contracts. 

This Avas now their third visit, and it remained to be seen 
how they wonkl be received. We rowed a short distance 
down Wappoo Creek, which separates the island from the 
main land, and disembarked at a plantation belonging to three 
orphan children, whose guardian was a member of our party. 
The freedmen, having learned that the mere presence of the 
planters on the soil could effect nothing, had changed their 
tactics, and now not one of them was to be seen. Although 
there were twenty-two hundred on the island, it appeared as 
solitary and silent as if it had not an inhabitant. 

We found the plantation house occupied as head-quarters 
by an officer of the Bureau, recently sent to the island. The 
guardian of the three orphans took me aside, showed me the 
desolated grounds without, shaded by magnificent live-oaks, 
and the deserted chambers within. 

" You can understand my feelings coming here," he said. 
" My sister expired in this room. She left her children to 
me. This estate, containing seventeen hundred acres, and 
worth fifty thousand dollars, is all that remains to them ; and 
you see the condition it is in. Why does the Government of 
the United States persist in robbing orphan children ? They 
have done nothing ; ijiey have n't earned the titles of Rebels 
and traitors. Why not give them back their land ? " 

I svmpathized sincerely with this honest gentleman and his 
orphan wards. "But you forget," I said, " that such a war 
as we have passed through cannot be, without involving in its 
calamities the innocent as well as the rest. It would have 
been well if that fact had not been overlooked in the begin- 
ning." 

He made no reply. I afterwards learned from his friends 
that he was one of the original and most fiery secessionists of 
Charleston. He made a public speech, early in 'sixty-one, — 
printed in the newspapers at the time, — in which he ex- 
pressly pledged his life and his fortune to the Confederate 
cause. His life he had managed to preserve ; and of his for- 



RECEPTION BY THE ISLA:N^DERS. 541 

tune sufficient remained for the elegant maintenance of Ills 
own antl his sister's chihh'en ; so that it appeared to me quite 
unreasonable for him to complain of the misfortune which he 
himself had been instrumental in bringing upon the orphans. 

The party separated, each man going to look at his own 
estate. I accompanied one who had three fine plantations in 
the vicinity. A Northern man by birth, liis sympathy had 
been with the government, while he found his private interest 
in working for the Confederate usurpation under jn-oHtable 
contracts. By holding his tongue and attending to business 
he had accumulated a handsome fortune, — wisely investing his 
Confederate scrip in real estate, Avhich he thought somewhat 
more substantial. These plantations were a part of his earn- 
ino's. Beino" a Northern man, and at heart a Union man, he 
deemed it liard that they should not be at once restored to 
him. The fact that they were his reward for aiding the ene- 
mies of his country, — rich gains, so to speak, snatched from 
the wreck of a pirate ship on board which he had served, — 
did not seem to have occurred to him as any bar to his claims. 

At first we found all the freedmen's houses shut up, and as 
silent as if the inhabitants had all gone to a funeral. By press- 
ino- into some of them, we discovered a few women and chil- 
dren, but the men had disappeared. Since they were not to 
resist our coming, it seemed their policy to have nothing what- 
ever to do with us. At last we found an old negro too decrepit 
to run away, who sullenly awaited our approach. 

" What is your name, uncle ? " 

" Samuel Butler." 

" Where are you from ? " 

" From St. John." 

*' How did you come here ? " 

" Yankees fotch me." 

" Don't you want to go back to St. John ? " 

" Yankees fotch me here," repeated the old man, " and I 
won't go back widout de Yankees send me back." 

We inquired about his family and his prospects. 

" My chirn 's out in soldiering. I made corn, peas, and 



542 A VISIT TO JAMES ISLAND. 

potatoes ; I got enough to carry me out de year. I had to 
bought my own clo'es, besides. Gov'ment don't help me none." 

He had his forty-acre lot, and would not peril his claim to it 
by talking about a contract. 

In one cabin we found a very old negro lying on the floor, 
miserably sick Avith the dropsy. He had been " a faithful old 
family servant," as the phrase is ; and was accounted a wise 
head by the planters. When asked if he thought the freed- 
men could be prevailed upon to contract, he replied : 

" What little we do will be sarvice to we-self. We don't 
want to work for rest," — meaning the planters. 

Speaking of himself, he said : 

" My time is all burnt out." He said there was a heap of 
idlers on the island. " Dey 'm on a full spree now. Dey got 
a sort of frolic in de brains." There had been considerable 
destitution even among the industrious ones the past year ; 
but many of them had made fair crops, and had corn sufficient 
to keep them till another harvest. " Dey 'm more situated 
better now." The sraall-pox had raged on the island, and " a 
sight of our people had died." 

We lingered at these cabins, waiting for a guard the officer 
at head-quarters thought it prudent to send with us. At last 
he arrived, — a shining black youngster in soldier-clothes, over- 
flowing with vanity and politeness. " I 'm Avaiting on your 
occupation, gentlemen," he said ; and we started on. 

We passed a field in which there were several women at 
work. As they had no mule, they did everything by hand, 
chopping up the turf and weeds with their great awkward 
hoes, and scraping them, with the surface soil, into little ridges, 
on which cotton or corn was to be planted. This process of 
preparing the ground is called " listing " ; it answers the pur- 
pose of ploughing, and the refuse stuff scraped together, rotting, 
serves instead of manure. 

My companion inquired on what terms they would consent 
to give up their forty-acre lot. One of them, poising her 
formidable hoe, I'eplied in accents that carried conviction with 
them : 



OUR GUARD. — FREEDIklEN'S DISADVAXTAGES. 543 

" Gov'ment drap we here. Can't go 'till Gov'ment take 
we off'." 

As we were now proceeding to a more remote part of the 
island, our colored guard walked proiadly on to i)rotc'ct us from 
danger. " Dey can't make no raid on you, widout dey makes 
raid on me fus' ! " 

He evidently felt himself vastly superior to these low-down 
plantation niggers. And I noticed that when we stopped to 
talk with any of them, and my friend recorded their names 
and numbers, and I also took notes, this shining black fellow 
in blue likewise produced a piece of card and a })encil, and 
appeared to be writing down very interesting and amusing 
memoranda. 

A mile or so from head-quarters we found negro men and 
women working in the fields. 

" Is this your farm? " my friend inquired of one of them. 

" I calls it mine. General Saxton told me to come and 
stake out my forty acres, and he'd give me a ticket for it." 

" Would n't it be better for you to contract for good wages, 
than to work in this way ? " 

" No, I don't want to contract. 1 '11 eat up my corn and 
peas fus'." 

" Did you raise much last year?" 

" I begun too late. Den de drought hit us bad. Heap of 
places didn't raise much. But I got a little." 

Observing a strange looking thing of skin and bones stand- 
ing in the weeds, I asked, " Is that a horse ? " 

" Dat 's a piece o' one. When he gits tired, I can take my 
arms ; I've good strong arms." 

Upon that one of the women struck in vehemently : 

" I can plough land same as a boss. Wid dese hands I 
raise cotton dis year, buy two bosses ! " 

Seeing the immense disadvantage under which these poor 
people labored, without teams, without capital, and even with- 
out security in the possession of their little homesteads, I urged 
them to consider well what the planters had to offer. 

" If I contract, what good does my forty acres do me ? " 



544 A VISIT TO JAMES ISLAND. 

" But you are not sure of your forty acres. This year or 
next they may be given back to the former owner. Then you 
■will have nothing ; for you will have spent all your time and 
strength in trying to get a start. But if you work for wages, 
you will have, if you are prudent, a hundred and tifty dollars 
in clear cash at the end of the year. At that rate it will not 
be long before you will be able to buy a little place and stock 
it handsomely ; Avhen you will probably be much better off 
than you would bo working here in this way." 

I could see that this argument was not without its weight 
with the men. They appeared troubled by it, but not con- 
vinced. The women clamored against it, and almost made me 
feel that I was an enemy, giving them insidious ill advice. 
And when I saw the almost religions attachment of these peo- 
ple to their homes, and their hope and ambition bearing up 
resolutely against poverty and every discouragement, it woidd 
have caused me a pang of remorse to know that I had pur- 
suaded any of them to give np their humble but worthy and 
honest aims. Then the children came around us, carrying 
primers, out of Avhich they read with pleased eagerness, either 
for the fun of the thing, or to show ns what they could do. 
The parents, forgetting the disheartening words we had spoken, 
said cheerily, " Richard, Helen, time for school ! " and the 
little ones scampered away ; the older ones resumed their 
work, and we walked on. 

I was ])leased to see some of the forty-acre lots enclosed by 
substantial new fences. But every question of benefit has two 
sides. The other side to this was that the fine old plantation 
shade-trees had been cut down and split into rails ; a circum- 
stance which made my friend the planter look glum. 

The island is level, with handsome hedged avenues running 
through it in various directions. It is nine miles in length and 
three in breadth. "VVe extended our walk as far as Fo' . Pem- 
berton, on Stono River, which bounded my friend's plantations 
in that direction. On our return, he thought he would try 
one more freedman with the offer of a contract. 

The man was workino; with his wife on a little farm of in- 



HIS OWK DRIVER. 545 

definite extent. " I don't know how mucli land I have. I 
guessed off as near as I could forty acres." 

He said he had " a large fombly," and tliat he came from 
Charleston. " I heard there was a chance of we being our 
own driver here ; that 's why we come." He could get along 
very well if he only had a horse. " But if I can git de land, 
I '11 take my chances." 

" But if you can't get the land ? " 

" If a man got to go crost de riber, and he can't git a boat, 
he take a log. If I can't own de land, I '11 hire or lease 
land, but I won't contract." 

" Come, then," said my friend, "we may as well go home." 



35 



546 •SHERMAN IN SOUTH CAROLINA. 



CHAPTER LXXVI. 

SHEEMAN IN SOUTH CAROLINA. 

"The march of the Federals into our State," says a -writer 
in the " Columbia Phoenix," " was characterized Ly such 
scenes of license, plunder, and conflagration as very soon 
showed that the threats of the Northern press, and of their 
soldiery, were not to he regarded as a mere hrntum fulmen. 
Daily long trains of fugitives lined the roads, with wives and 
children, and horses and stock and cattle, seeking refuge from 
the pursuers. Long lines of Avagons covered the highways. 
Half-naked people cowered from the winter under bush-tents 
in the thickets, under the eaves of houses, under the railroad 
sheds, and in old cars left them along the route. All these 
repeated the same story of suffering, violence, poverty, and 
nakedness. Habitation after habitation, village after village, — 
one sending up its signal flames to the other, presaging for it 
the same fite, — lighted the Avinter and midnight sky with 
crimson horrors. 

" No language can describe, nor can any catalogue furnish, 
an adequate detail of the wide-spread destruction of homes 
and property. Granaries were emptied, and where the grain 
was not carried off", it was strewn to waste under the feet of 
the cavalry, or consigned to the fire which consumed the dwell- 
ino-. The negroes were robbed equally Avith the Avhites of 
food and clothing. The roads were covered Avith butchered 
cattle, hogs, mules, and the costliest furniture. Valuable cab- 
inets, rich pianos, Avere not only hewn to pieces, but bottles of 
ink, turpentine, oil, Avhatever could eftace or destroy, Avere 
employed to defile and ruin. Horses Avere ridden into the 
houses. People were forced from their beds, to permit the 
search after hidden treasures. 



548 SHERMAN IN SOUTH CAROLINA. 

" The beautiful homesteads of the parish countiy, with their 
wonderful tropical gardens, were ruined ; ancient dwellings of 
black cypress, one hundred years old, which had been reared 
by the fathers of the Republic, — men whose names were fa- 
mous in Revolutionary history, — were given to the torch as 
recklessly as were the rude hovels ; choice pictures and works 
of art from Europe, select and numerous libraries, objects of 
peace Avholly, were all destroyed. The inhabitants, black no 
less than white, were left to starve, compelled to feed only 
upon the garbage to be found in the abandoned camps of the 
soldiers. The corn scraped up from the spots where the horses 
fed, has been the only means of life left to thousands but lately 
in affluence. The villages of Buford's Bridge, of Barnwell, 
Blackville, Graham's, Bamberg, Midway, were more or less 
destroyed ; the inhabitants everywhere left homeless and with- 
out food. The horses and mules, all cattle and hogs, when- 
ever fit for service or for food, were carried oft', and the rest 
shot. Every implement of the workman or the farmer, tools, 
ploughs, hoes, gins, looms, wagons, vehicles, was made to feed 
the flames." 

Passing northward through the State, by the way of Orange- 
burg, Columbia, and Winnsboro', I heard, all along the route, 
stories corroborative of the general truthfulness of this some- 
what highly colored picture. The following, related to me 
by a lady residing in Orangeburg District, will serve as a 
sample of these detailed narratives. 

" The burning of the bridges by the Confederates, as the 
Yankees were chasing them, did no good, but a deal of harm. 
They could n't stop^such an army as Sherman's, but all they 
could do was to hinder it, and keep it a few days longer in the 
country, eating us up. 

" It was the best disciplined army in the world. At sun- 
down, not a soldier was to be seen, and you could rest in 
peace till morning. That convinces me that everything that 
was done was permitted, if not ordered. 

" I had an old cook with me, — one of the best old creatures 
you ever saw. She had a hard master before we bought her, 



HOUSES FIRED. 549 

and she carried the marks on her face and hands wliere he had 
thrown knives at her. Such treatment as she got from us was 
something new to her ; and there was nothing she would n't 
do for us, in return. 

" ' For lieaven's sake, missus,' says she, ' bury some flour 
for the cliiFn ! ' I gave her the keys to the smoke-house, and 
told her to do what she pleased. ' Send all the niggers oft' the 
place but me and my son,' she says, ' for I don't trust 'em.' 
Then she and her son buried two barrels of flour, the silver 
pitcher and goblets, and a box of clothes. But that night she 
dreamed that the Yankees came and found the place ; so the 
next morning she went and dug up all the things but the 
flour, which she had n't time to remove, and buried them 
under the hog-pen. Sure enough, when the Yankees came, 
they found the flour, but her dream saved the rest. She was 
afraid they would get hold of her son, and make him tell, so 
she kept him in the chimney-corner, right under her eyes, all 
day, pretending he Avas sick. 

" Some of the negroes were very much excited by the Yan- 
kees' coming. One of our black girls jumped up and shouted, 
' Glory to God ! de Yankees is comin' to marry all we nig- 
gers ! ' But they genei'ally behaved very well. A black man 
named Charles, belonging to one of our neighbors, started 
with a load of goods, and flanked the Yankees for three days, 
and eluded them. 

" A good many houses were burned in our neighborhood. 
Some that were occupied were set on fire two or three times, 
and the inhabitants put them out. The Yankees set the woods 
on fire, and we should have all been burnt up, if our negroes 
hadn't dug trenches to keep the flames from reaching the 
buildings. General Sherman and his staff" stopped at the 
house of a man of the name of Walker, in Barnwell District. 
While jMr. Walker was thanking him for protecting his prop- 
erty, he turned around, and saw the house on fire. General 
Sherman was very indignant. Said he, ' If I could learn who 
did that, he should meet with condign punishment ! ' 

" The foragers broke down all the broadside of our barn, 



550 SHERMAK IN SOUTH CAROLINA. 

and let the corn out ; then they broke down all the broadside 
of the garden, and drove in. We had three hundred bushels 
of corn ; and they took all but fifty bushels ; they told me to 
hide that away. We had three barrels of syrup, and they 
took all but one gallon. They took eight thousand pounds of 
fodder, and three barrels of flour, all we had. We had twelve 
hundred pounds of bacon, and the soldiers took all but three 
pieces, which they said they left for the rest to take. We had 
twelve bushels of rough-rice ; they left us three ; and after- 
wards soldiers came in and threw shot in it, and mixed all up 
with sugar. 

" They loaded up our old flimily carriage Avith bacon and 
sweet potatoes, and drove it away, — and that hurt me worse 
than all. 

" They took our last potatoes. Three or four had just been 
roasted for the children : ' Damn the children ! ' they said ; 
and they ate the potatoes. 

" Out of forty hogs, they left us six. We had twenty-one 
head of cattle, and they left us five. The officers were very 
kind to us, and if we could have had them Avith us all the 
time, we should have saved a good deal of stuff. One Yankee 
lieutenant was with us a good deal, and he was just like a 
brother to me. He reprimanded the soldiers who spoke saucily 
to us, telling them to remember that they had mothers and 
sisters at home. He wanted me to put out a white flag, be- 
cause my husband is a Northern man. But I said, ' I '11 see 
this house torn to pieces first, for I 'm as good a Rebel as any 
of them ! ' He took three wagon-loads of corn from us : I 
thought that was mighty hard, if he cared anything for me." 
It was he, however, who left her the fifty bushels, whicli no- 
body took. 

" The soldiers were full of fun and mischief. Says one, 
' I 'm going to the smoke-house, to sweeten my mouth with 
molasses, and then I 'm coming in to kiss these dumb perty 
girls.' They emptied out the molasses, then w^alked through 
it, and tracked it all over the house. They dressed up their 
horses in women's clothes. Tliey tore up our dresses and 



"VVHITE OFFICERS AND COLORED GIRLS. 551 

tied them to their horses' tails. They dressed up the negroes 
that followed them. They strung cow-bells all around their 
horses and cattle. They killed chickens and brought them 
into the house on their bayonets, all dripping. 

" Two came into the house drunk, and ordered the old cook 
to get them some dinner. She told them we had nothing left. 
' Go and kill a weasel ! ' said they. She boiled them some 
eggs. They took one, and peeled it, and gave it to my little 
bo}^ ' Here, eat that ! ' said one. ' But I 've a good mind to 

blow your brains out, for you 're a d d little Rebel.' This 

man was from Connecticut, a native of the same town my 
husband came from. It would have been curious if they had 
met, and found that they were old acquaintances ! 

" Some behaved very well. One was handling the fancy 
things on the what-not, when another said, ' It won't help crush 
the Rebellion to break them.' ' I ain't going to break them,' 
he said, and he didn't. 

" My husband had moved up a large quantity of crockery 
and glass-ware from his store in Charleston, for safety. The 
Yankees smashed it all. They would n't stop for keys, but 
broke open every drawer and closet. There wasn''t a lock left 
in the neighborhood. 

" For three nights we never lay down at all. I just sat 
one side of the fireplace and another young lady the other, 
thinking what had happened during the day, and wondering 
what dreadful things would come next. 

" She had helped me bury three boxes of silver in the 
cellar. The soldiers were all around them, and afterwards I 
found one of the boxes sticking out ; but they did n't find them. 
AVhen they asked me for my silver I thought I 'd lie once, and 
I told them I had none. ' It 's a lie,' says one. Then the old 
cook's son spoke up, ' Take the word of a slave ; she 's nothing 
buried.' On t^jat they stopped looking. 

" Some of the officers had colored girls with them. One 
stopped over night with his miss at the house of one of our 
neighbors. When they came down stairs in the morning, she 
was dressed up magnificently in Mrs. J 's best clothes. 



552 SHERMAN IN SOUTH CAROLINA. 

They ordered breakfast ; while they were eating, the last of 
the army passed on, and they were left behind. ' Captain,' 
says slie, ' aint ye wery wentur'some ? ' 

" When one division was plundering us, the men would say, 
' We 're nothing ; but if sitch a division comes along, you 're 
gone up.' 

" Besides the fifty bushels of corn the lieutenant left us, I 
don't think there were fifty bushels in the whole district. Our 
neighbors were jealous because we had been treated so much 
better than they. The Yankees did n't leave enough for the 
children to eat, nor dishes to eat off of Those who managed 
to save a little corn or a few potatoes, shared with the rest. 

" We thought we were served badly enough. Of all my 
bedding, I had but two sheets and a pillow-case left. The 
Yankees did n't spare us a hat or a coat. They even took the 
children's clothes. We had n't a comb or a brush for our 
heads the next day, nor a towel for our hands. But, after all 
is said about Sherman's army, I confess some of our own 
soldiers, especially Wheeler's men, were about as bad. 

" I never gave the negroes a single order, but they went to 
work, after the Yankees had passed, and cleared up the whole 
place. They took corn and ground it ; and they went to the 
Yankee camp for meat, and cooked it for us. Our horses were 
taken, but they planted rice and corn with their hoes. There 
were scarcely any white men in the country. Most were in 
the army ; and the Yankees took prisoners all who came under 
the conscript act. They carried some away who have never 
been heard from since. 

" My husband was in Charleston, and for weeks neither of 
us knew if the other was alive. I walked seventeen miles to 
mail a letter to him. The old cook went with me and carried 
my child. From seven in the morning until dark, the first 
day, I walked twelve miles ; and five the next. The old cook 
did n't feel tired a bit, though she carried the baby ; but she 
kept saying to me, ' Do don't set down dar, missus ; we '11 
neber git dar ! ' We were two days coming home again." 



FALL OF PRIDE. 553 



CHAPTER LXXVII. 

THE BURNING OF COLUMBIA. 

"It lias pleased God," says the writer in the "Daily Phoenix," 
already quoted, " to visit our beautiful city with the most cruel 
fate which can ever befall states or cities. He has permitted 
an invading army to penetrate our country almost without 
impediment ; to rob and ravage our dwellings, and to commit • 
three fifths of our city to the flames. Eighty-four squares, out 
of one hundred and twenty-four which the city contains, have 
been destroyed, with scarcely the exception of a single house. 
The ancient capitol building of the State — that venerable 
structure, which, for seventy years, has echoed with the elo- 
quence and Avisdom of the most famous statesmen — is laid in 
ashes ; six temples of the Most High God have shared the 
same fate ; eleven banking establishments ; the schools of learn- 
ing, the shops of art and trade, of invention and manufacture ; 
shrines equally of religion, benevolence, and industry ; are all 
buried together, in one congregated ruin. Humiliation spreads 
her ashes over our homes and garments, and the universal 
wreck exhibits only one common aspect of despair." 

Columbia, the proud capital of the proudest State in the 
Union, — who ever supposed that slie could be destined to such 
a fate ? Who ever imagined that in this way that fine bird, 
secession, would come home to roost ? 

Almost until the last moment the people of South Carolina, 
relying upon the immense prestige of their little State sover- 
eignty, even after the State was invaded, believed that the 
capital was safe. Already, during the war, thousands of citi- 
zens from Charleston and other places, in order to avoid the 
possibility of danger, had sought the retirement of its beautiful 
shady streets and supposed impregnable walls. The popula- 



554 THE BURNING OF COLUMBIA. 

tion of Columbia had thus increased, in two or three years, 
from fourteen thousand to thirty -seven thousand. Then 
Sherman appeared, driving clouds of fugitives before him into 
tlie city. Still the inhabitants cherished their delusion, until 
it was dispelled by the sound of the Federal cannon at their 
gates. The Confederate troops fell back into the city, followed 
by bursting shells. 

Then commenced the usual scenes of panic. "Terrible was 
the press, the shock, the rush, the hurry, the universal confu- 
sion — such as might natui'ally be looked for, in the circum- 
stances of a city from which thousands were preparing to fly, 
without previous preparations for flight, burdened with pale 
and trembling women, their children and portable chattels, 
trunks and jewels, family Bibles and the lares familiar es. The 
railroad depot for Charlotte was crowded with anxious waiters 
upon the train, with a wilderness of luggage, millions, perhaps, 
in value, much of which was left finally and lost. Through- 
out Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, these scenes of strug- 
gle were in constant performance. The citizens fared badly. 
The Governments of the State and of the Confederacy ab- 
sorbed all the modes of conveyance. Transportation about the 
city could not be had, save by a rich or favored few. No love 
could persuade where money failed to convince, and self, 
growing bloated in its dimensions, stared from every hurry- 
ing aspect, as you traversed the excited and crowded streets. 
In numerous instances, those who succeeded in getting away, 
did so at the cost of trunks and luggage ; and, under what 
discomfort they departed, no one who did not see can readily 
conceive." ^ 

Numbers of the poorer classes took advantage of this con- 
fusion to plunder the city. On Friday morning, they broke 
into the South Carolina Railroad Depot, which was " crowded 
with the stores of merchants and planters, trunks of treasure, 
innumerable Avares and goods of fugitives, all of great value. 
It appears that among its contents were some kegs of powder. 
The plunderers paid, and suddenly, the penalties of their crime. 

1 Daily Phanix. 



ORIGIN OF THE FIRES. 555 

Using their lights freely and hurriedly, they fired a train of 
powder leading to the kegs." A fearful explosion followed, 
destructive to property and life.^ 

Early on Friday the Confederate quartermaster and com- 
missary stores were thrown open to the people. Old men, 
women, children, and negroes, loaded themselves with plunder. 
Wheeler's cavalry rushed in for their share, and several troop- 
ers were seen riding off " with huge bales of cotton on their 
saddles." i 

The same day — Friday, February 17th — Slierman en- 
tered Columbia. To the anxious mayor he said : " Not a 
finger's breadth of your city shall be harmed. You may lie 
down and sleep, satisfied that your town will be as safe in my 
hands as in your own." That night Columbia was destroyed. 

It is still a question, who is responsible for this calamity. 
General Sherman denies that he authorized it, and we are 
bound to believe him. But did he not permit it ? or was it 
not in his power at least to have prevented it? General 
Howard is reported to have said to a clergyman of the place, 
that no orders were given to burn Columbia, but the soldiers 
had got the impression that its destruction would be acceptable 
at head-quarters. Were the soldiers correct in their impres- 
sion ? 

A member of General Sherman's staff speaks thus of the 
origin of the fire : — 

" I am quite sure that it originated in sparks flying from 
the hundreds of bales of cotton which the Rebels had placed 
along the middle of the main street, and fired as they left the 
city. Fire from a tightly compressed bale of cotton is unlike 
that of a more open material, which burns itself out. The 
fire lies smouldering in a bale of cotton lung after it appears 
to be extinguished; and in this instance, when our soldiers 
supposed they had extinguished the fire, it suddenly broke out 
again wuth the most disastrous effect. 

" There were fires, however, which must have been started 
independent of the above-named cause. The source of these 
1 Dailij Fhcenix. 



556 THE BURNING OF COLUMBIA. 

is a?cribed to the desire for revenge from some two hundred 
of our prisoners, wlio had escaped from tlie cars as tliey were 
being conveyed from this city to Charlotte, and with the mem- 
ories of long sufferings in the miserable pens I visited yester- 
day on the other side of the river, sought this means of retal- 
iation. Again it is said that the soldiers who first entered the 
town, intoxicated with success and a liberal supply of bad 
liquor, which was freely distributed among them by designing 
citizens, in an insanity of exhilaration set fire to unoccupied 
houses." ^ 

It is also probable that fires were set by citizen marauders. 
But is this the whole truth with regard to the burnino- of 
Columbia ? 

I visited the place nearly a year after its great disaster, 
when the passions of men had had time to cool a little. 
Through the courtesy of Governor Orr I made acquaintance 
with prominent and responsible citizens. To these gentlemen 
— especially to Mr. J. G. Gibbes, the present mayor of the 
city — I am indebted for the following statements and anec- 
dotes. 

Early in the evening, as the inhabitants, quieted by General 
Sherman's assurance, were about retii'ing to their beds, a 
rocket went up in the lower part of the city. Another in the 
centre, and a third in the upper part of the town, succeeded. 
Dr. R. W. Gibbes, father of the present mayor, was in the 
street talking, near one of the Federal guards, who exclaimed, 
on seeing the signals, " My God ! I pity your city ! " Mr. 
Goodwyn, who was mayor at the time, reports a similar re- 
mark from an Iowa soldier. " Your city is doomed ! These 
rockets are the signal ! " Immediately afterwards fires broke 
out in twenty different places. 

The dwellings of Secretary Trenholm and General Wade 
Hampton were among the first to burst into flames. Soldiers 
went from house to house, spreading the conflagration. Fire- 
balls, composed of cotton saturated with turpentine, were 
thrown in at doors and windows. Many houses were entered, 

1 Nichols's St<yryqfthe Great March. 



/ 

STORIES OF FEDERAL GUARDS. 557 

and fired by means of combustible liquids ])oured upon beds 
and clothing, and ignited by wads of" burning cotton, or 
matches from a soldier's pocket. The fire department came 
out in force, but the hose-pipes were cut to pieces and the 
men driven from the streets. At the same time universal 
plundering and robbery began. 

The burning of the house of Dr. R. W. Gibbes, — an emi- 
nent physician, well-known to the scientific world, — was thus 
described to me by his son : — 

" He had a guard at the front door ; but some soldiers 
climbed in at the rear of the house, got into the parlor, 
heaped together sheets, poured turpentine over tliem, piled 
chairs on them, and set them on fire. As he remonstrated 
with them, they laughed at him. The guard at the front 
door could do nothing, for if he left his post, other soldiers 
would come in that way. 

" The guard had a disabled foot, and my father had di'essed 
it for him. He appeared very grateful for the favor, and 
earnestly advised my father to save his valuables. The house 
was full of costly paintings, and curiosities of art and natural 
history, and my father did not know what to save and what 
to leave behind. He finally tied up in a bedquilt a quantity 
of silver and gems. As he was going out of the door, — the 
house was already on fire behind him, — the guard said, 'Is 
that all you can save ? ' ' It is all I can well carry,' said my 
father. ' Leave that with me,' said the guard ; ' I will take 
charge of it, while you go back and get another bundle.' My 
father thought he was very kind. He went back for another 
bmidle, and while he was gone, the guard ran off with his 
lame leg and all the gems and silver." 

One of Mr. Gibbes's neighbors, a wido\v lady, had an 
equally conscientious guard. He said to her, " I can guard 
the front of the house, but not the rear ; and if you have 
anything valuable buried you had better look after it." She 
threw up her hands and exclaimed, " O, my silver and my 
fine old wine, buried under that peach-tree ! " The guard 
immediately called a squad of men, and told them to respect 



558 THE BURMNG OF COLUMBIA. 

the widow lady's wine and silver, buried under tliat peach- 
tree. He went with them, and they dug a little to see if the 
treasures were safe. Finding the wine, they tasted it to see 
if it merited the e[)ithet " fine old." Discovering that it did, 
they showed their approbation of her good sense and truthful- 
ness by drinking it up. They then carried off the silver. 

. The soldiers, in their march through Georgia, and thus far 
into South Carolina, had acquired a wonderful skill in finding 
treasures. They had two kinds of " divining-rods," negroes, 
and bayonets. What the unfaithful servants of the rich failed 
to reveal, tlie other instruments, by thorough and constant 
practice, were generally able to discover. On the night of 
the fire, a thousand men could be seen, in the yards and gar- 
dens of Columbia, by the glare of the flames, probing the 
earth with bayonets. " Not one twentieth part of the articles 
buried in this city escaped them," Mr. Gibbes assured me. 

The fire Avas seen at immense distances. A gentleman 
living eighty-five miles north of Columbia, told me he could 
see to read in his o;arden that nio-ht by the li<iht it o-ave. 

The dismay and terror of the inhabitants can scarcely be 
conceived. They had two enemies, the fire in their houses 
and the soldiery without. J\lany who attem])ted to bear away 
portions of their goods were robbed by the way. Trunks and 
bundles were snatched from the hands of hurrying fugitives, 
broken open, rifled, and then hurled into the flames. Orna- 
ments were plucked from the necks and arms of ladies, and 
caskets from their hands. Even children and negroes were 
robbed. 

Fortunately the streets of Columbia were broad, else many 
of the fugitives must have perished in the flames which met 
them on all sides. The exodus of homeless families, flying 
betAveen walls of fire, was a terrible and [)iteous spectacle. I 
have already described a similar scene in a Reminiscezice of 
Chambersburg, and shall not dwell upon this. The fact that 
these were the wives and children and flaming homes of our 
enemies, does not lessen the feeling of sympathy for the suf- 
ferers. Some fled to the parks ; others to the open ground 



SACKING OF CHURCHES. -DISCirimE. 559 

■without the city ; numbers sought refuge in the graveyards. 
Isohited and unburned dwellings were crowded to excess with 
fugitives. " On Saturday morning," said Mayor Gibbes, 
" there were two hundred women and children in tiiis house." 

Tlu-ee fifths of the city in bulk, and four fifths in value, were 
destroyed. The loss of property is estimated at thirty millions. 
No more respect seems to have been shown for buildings com- 
monly deemed sacred, than for any others. The churches 
were pillaged, and afterwards burned. St. Mary's College, a 
Catholic institution, shared their Me. The Catholic Convent, 
to which had been confided for safety many young ladies, not 
nuns, and stores of treasure, was ruthlessly sacked. The sol- 
diers drank the sacramental wine, and profaned with fiery 
draughts of vulgar whiskey the goblets of the communion ser- 
vice. Some went off reeling under the weight of priestly 
robes, holy vessels, and candlesticks. 

Not even the Masonic and Odd Fellow lodges were spared. 
Afterwards tipsy soldiers were seen about the streets dressed 
up in the regalias of these orders. The sword of state, be- 
longing to the Grand Lodge of South Carolina, a massy, curi- 
ous, two-edged weapon, of considerable antiquity, was among 
the objects stolen. 

The buildings and library of South Carolina College were 
saved. 

Not much drunkenness was observed among the soldiers 
until after the sacking of the city had been some time in prog- 
ress. Then the stores of liquors consumed exhibited their 
natural effect ; and it is stated that many perished in fires of 
their own kindling. 

Yet the army of Sherman did not, in its wildest orgies, for- 
get its splendid discipline. "When Avill these horrors cease?" 
asked a lady of an officer at her house. " You will hear the 
bugles at sunrise," he replied ; " then they will cease, and not 
till then." He prophesied truly. " At daybreak, on Satur- 
day morning," said Mayor Gibbes, "I saw two men galloping 
through the streets, blowing horns. Not a dwelling was fired 
after that ; immediately the town became quiet." 



< 

560 THE BURNING OF COLUMBIA. 

Kobberies, however, did not cease with the night. Watches 
and money continued to be in demand. A soldier would ask 
a citizen the time. If the latter was so imprudent as to pro- 
duce his watch, it was instantly snatched. " A very pretty 
watch that ; 1 '11 take it, if you please," was the usual remark 
accompanying the act. 

One old gentleman who had purchased two watches for his 
grandchildren, lost one in this way. In his rage and grief he 
exclaimed, " You may as well take the other ! " And his 
suggestion was cheerfully complied with. 

Another sufferer said, " That watch will be good for noth- 
ing without the key. Won't you stop and take it ? " " Thank 
you," said the soldier ; and he went off, proudly winding his 
new chronometer. 

A few saved their watches by the use of a little artifice. 
" What 's the time ? " cried a soldier, stopping a ready-witted 
gentleman. " You 're too late ; I was just asked that ques- 
tion," was the opportune reply. Another looked up where the 
city hall clock stood until brought down by the fire, and re- 
plied to the question of time, " The clock has been burned, you 
see." 

The women of Columbia have the credit of exhibiting great 
courage and presence of mind, under these trying circum- 
stances. Occasionally, however, they were taken by surprise. 
I have related how one lady lost her silver and fine old wine. 
Another was suddenly accosted by a soldier who thrust his 
revolver under her bonnet : " Your money ! your watch ! " 
" O, my soul ! " she exclaimed, " I have no watch, no money, 
except what 's tied 'round my waist ! " "I '11 relieve you of 
that," said the soldier, ripping up her stays with his knife. 

The soldiers were full of cheerful remarks about the fire. 
" What curious people you are ! " said one, looking at the 
ruins. " You run up your chimneys before you build your 
houses." 

Although some of the guards were faithless, others — and I 
hope a majority of them — executed their trust with fidelity. 

Some curious incidents occurred. One man's treasure, con- 



CURIOUS INCIDENTS. 661 

cealcd by his garden fence, escaped the soldiers' divining-rods, 
but was afterwards discovered by a liitched horse pawing the 
earth .from the buried box. Some hidden guns had defied 
the most dihgent search, until a chicken, chased by a soldier, 
ran into a hole beneath a house. The soldier, crawling after, 
and putting in his hand for the chicken, found the guns. 

A soldier, passing in the streets, and seeing some children 
playing with a beautiful little greyhound, amused himself by 
beating its brains out. Another soldier with a kinder heart, 
to comfort them, told them not to cry, and proposed to have a 
funeral over the remains of their little favorite. He put it in 
a box, and went to bury it in the garden, directly on the spot 
where the family treasures were concealed. The proprietor, in 
great distress of mind, M^atched the proceedings, fearful of 
exciting suspicion if he opposed it, and trembling lest each 
thrust of the spade should reveal the Secret. A corner of the 
box was actually laid bare, when, kicking some dirt over it, he 
said, "There, that will do, children ! " and hastened the burial. 
The soldier no doubt thought he betrayed a good deal of emo- 
tion at the grave of a lap-dog. The hole was filled up, but 
the danger was not yet over, for there was a cliance that the 
next soldier who came that way might be attracted by the 
fresh-looking earth, and go to digging. 

Some treasures were buried in cemeteries, but they did not 
always escape the search of the soldiers, who showed a strong 
mistrust of new-made graves. 

It is curious to consider what has become of all the jewels 
and finery of which our armies robbed the people of the South. 
On two or three occasions gentlemen of respectability have 
shown me, with considerably more pride than I could have 
felt under the circumstances, vases and trinkets which they 
" picked up when they were in the army." Some of these 
curiosities have been heard from by their rightful owners. A 
ring, worn by a lady of Philadelphia, was last summer recog- 
nized by a Southern gentleman, who remarked that he thought 
he had seen it before. "Very possibly," was the reply ; " it 
was given me by Captain , of General Sherman's staff; 

36 



562 THE BURXIXG OF COLUMBIA. 

and it Avas presented to him by a lady of Columbia for his 
efforts in saving her property." But the lady of Columbia, 
who know nothing of any such efforts in her behalf, avers that 
the gallant captain stole the ring.^ 

Mrs. Minegault, daugliter of the late Judge Huger, of 
Charleston, — the same gentleman who was associated with 
Dr. Bolluiann in the attempted rescue of Lafayette from the 
duno-eons of Olmiitz, — Avhile on a visit to New York last sum- 
mer, was one Sunday morning kneeling in Grace Church, 
when she saw upon the fair shoulders of a lady kneeling befcjre 
her, a shawl which had been lost when her plantation, between 
Charleston and Savannah, was plundered by the Federals. 
Her attention being thus singularly attracted, she next ob- 
served on the lady's arm a bracelet which was taken from her 
at the same time. This was to her a very precious souvenir, 
for it had been presented to her by her father, and it contained 
his picture. The services ended, she followed the lady home, 
and rang at the door immediately after she had entered. Ask- 
ing to see the lady of the house, she was shown into the parlor, 
and presently the lady appeared, with the shawl upon her 
shoulders and the bracelet on her arm. Frankly the visitor 
related the story of the bracelet, and at once the Avearer re- 
stored it to her with ample apologies and regrets. The visitor, 
quite overcome by this generosity, and delighted beyond meas- 

1 An officer taking his punch (they drink punch in the army when the coffee ration 
is exhausted) from an clcganlly-chased silver cup, was sah^ted thus: — 

" Halloa, captain, that 's a gem of a cup. No mark on it; why, where did you get 
it?" 

*' Ye-e-s! that cup? Oh, that was given me by a lady in Columbia for saving her 
households gods from destruction." 

An enterprising officer in charge of a foraging party would return to camp with a 
substantial family coach, well filled with hams, meal, etc. 

" How are you, captain ? Where did you pick up that carriage? " 

" Elegant vehicle, is n't it? " was the repi}'; " that was a gift from a lady out here 
whose mansion was in flames. Arrived at the nick of time — good thing — she said 
she didn't need the carriage any longer- — answer for an ambulance one of these 
days." 

After a while this joke came to be repeated so often that it was dangerous for any 
one to exhibit a gold watch, a tobacco-box, any uncommon utensil of kitchen ware, a 
new pipe, a guard-chain, or a ring, without being asked if " a lady at Columbia had 
presented that article to him for saving her house from burning." — Story of thu 
Great March. 



DESTITUTION. —WAR AND EDUCATION. 563 

ure at the recovery of the bracelet, liaci not the heart to say a 
word about the shawl, but left it in the possession of the inno- 
cent wearer. 

I talked with some good Columbians who expressed the 
most violent hatred of the Yankees, for the ruin of their 
homes. Others took a more philosophical view of the subject. 
This difference was thus explained to me by Governor Orr's 
private secretary, an intelligent young man, who had been an 
officer in the Confederate service : — 

" People who were not in the war cannot understand or 
forgive these things. But those who have been in the army 
know what armies are ; they know that, under the same cir- 
cumstances, they would have done the same things." ^ 

I also observed that those whose losses were greatest were 
seldom those who complained most. Mayor Gibbes lost more 
cotton than any other individual in the Confederacy. Sher- 
man burned for him two thousand and seven hundred bales, 
besides mills and other property. Yet he spoke of these re- 
sults of the war without a murmur. 

He censured Sherman severely, however, for the destitution 
in which he left the people of Columbia. " I called on him 
to relieve the starving inhabitants he had burned out of their 
homes. He gave us four hundred head of refuse cattle, but 
he gave us nothing to feed them, and a hundred and sixty of 
them died of starvation before they could be killed. For five 
weeks afterwards, twenty-five hundred people around Columbia 
lived upon nothing but loose grain picked up about the camps, 
where the Federal horses had been fed. A stranger," he 
added, " cannot be made to understand the continued destitu- 
tion and poverty of the people of this district. If a tax should 
now be assessed upon them of three dollars per head, there 
would not be money enough in the district to pay it. Ordi- 

1 " The grass will grow in the Northern cities, where the pavements have been worn 
off by the tread of commerce. We will carry war where it is easy to advance — where 
food for the sword and toj-ch await our armies in the densely populated cities; and 
though they (the enemy) may come and spoil our crops, we can raise them as before, 
■while they cannot rear the cities which took years of industry and millions of money 
to build." — Jeff Davis in 1861 — Speech at S(evenson, Ala. 



564 THE BURNING OF COLUMBIA. 

narily, qur annual taxes in this city have been forty thousand 
dollars. This year they have dropped down to eighteen hun- 
dred dollars." 

South Carohna College is a striking illustration of the effect 
the war has had upon the institutions of learning at the South. 
Formerly it had about two hundred and fifty students ; it has 
now but eighteen. The State appropriated annually sixty-five 
thousand dollars for its benefit ; this year a nominal appropri- 
ation of eight thousand dollars was made, to pay the salaries 
of the professors, but when I was in Columbia they had not 
been able to get that. One, a gentleman of distinguished 
learning, said he had not had ten dollars in his possession since 
Sherman visited them. 

Of the desolation and horrors our army left behind it, no 
description can be given. Here is a single instance. At a 
factory on the Congaree, just out of Columbia, there re- 
mained, for six weeks, a pile of sixty-five dead horses and 
mules, shot by Sherman's men. It was impossible to bury 
them, all the shovels, spades, and other farming implements 
of the kind having been carried off or destroyed. 

Columbia must have been a beautiful city, judged by its 
ruins. The streets were broad and well shaded. Many fine 
residences still remain on the outskirts, but the entire heart 
of the city, Avithin their circuit, is a wilderness of crumbling 
walls, naked chimneys, and trees killed by the flames. The 
fountains of the desolated gardens arc dry, the basins cracked ; 
the pillars of the houses are dismantled, or overthrown ; the 
marble steps are broken ; but all these attest the Avealth and 
eleo-ance which one night of fire and orgies sufficed to destroy. 
Fortunately the unfinished new State House, one of the hand- 
somest public edifices in the whole country, received but tri- 
fling injury. 

Not much was doing to rebuild any but the business portion 
of the city. Only on Main Street were there many stores or 
shanties going up. 



FREE LABOR. — LANDS. 565 



CHAPTER LXXVIII. 

NOTES ON SOUTH CAROLINA. 

At a distance from the Sea Islands, the free-labor system 
in South Carolina, was fast settling down upon a satisfactory- 
basis. General Richardson, commanding the Eastern District 
of the State, — comprising all the districts east of the Wateree 
and Santee, except Georgetown and Horry, on the coast, — 
assured me that there. was going to be more cotton raised in 
those districts this year than ever before. 

In the districts west of the Wateree, the soil is not so well 
adapted to cotton, and the country abounds in ignorant small 
planters and poor whites. A planter of the average class, in 
York District, said to me : " The people of this country for- 
merly lived on nigger-raising. That was the crap we de- 
pended on. If we could raise corn and pork enough to feed 
the niggers, we did well. Now this great staple is tuk from 
us." 

The planters here love to dwell upon the advantages they 
derived from that crop. One said to me ; " Let a young man 
take three likely gals, set 'em to breedin' right away, and he 
mought make a fortune out on 'em, 'fore he was old. But 
them times is past." 

The winds of freedom had scarcely reached the more re- 
mote western districts. A planter of Union District told me 
that he was hiring good men for twentj'-five dollars a year. 
" Heap on 'em, round here, just works for their victuals and 
clothes, like they always did. I reckon they 'II all be back 
Avhar they was, in a few years." 

The South Carolina lands and modes of culture are not 
well adapted to corn. A rotation of crops is deemed neces- 
sary to keep the soil in a condition to raise it successfully. 



566 KOTES OX SOUTH CAKOLIXA. 

The decay of cotton seed and \A'aste cotton is its best fertilizer. 
During the war, when httle cotton was raised, planters became 
alarmed at the yearly decrease of the corn crop. The average 
yield, throughout the State, the first yeai', was fifteen bushels 
to the acre ; the second, twelve bushels ; the third, nine bush- 
els ; and the fourth, six bushels. 

Before the war, the city of Charleston exported annually 
one hundred and twenty-five thousand tierces of rice. This 
year, it is importing rice of an inferior quality from the West 
Indies. This fact indicates the condition of that culture. Yet 
in the face of it, rice-planters were raising the price of their 
lands from fifty dollars an acre, for which they could be bought 
before the war, to one hundred dollars. 

As the rice plantations are confined to the tide- water region, 
where the fields can be flooded after sowing, their present 
prospects were more or less embarrassed by the knotty Sea- 
Island question. " If our people this year make one sixth of 
an average rice-crop," said Governor Orr, " they will be for- 
tunate, and they will be doing well. In ohl times, our annual 
crop brought upwards of three and a half milHon dollai's, 
when rice was only five cents a pound." 

The railroads of South Carolina were nearly worn out 
during the war. All sorts of iron were used to keep them in 
repair ; and the old rolling-stock was kept running until it 
was ready to fall to pieces. Then Sherman came. The 
South Carolina Road, wealthy before the war, was relaying 
its torn-up track and rebuilding its extensive trestle-work and 
bridges, as fast as its eai'nings would permit. The branch to 
Columbia was once more in operation ; but, on the main road 
to Augusta, travel was eked out by a night of terribly rough 
staging. 

The finances of South Carolina Avere at a low ebb. Gov- 
ernor Orr told me that there had not been a dollar in the 
State treasury since his inauguration. The current expenses 
of the war were mostly met by taxation ; and the annual in- 
terest on the foreign debt of two and a half millions had been 
promptly paid, up to July, 1865, by the exportation of cotton. 



DEBTS. — TAXES. — OUTRAGES. 667 

The State bank was obliged to suspend its operations, but the 
faitli of the State was pledged for the redemption of the bills. 
The other banks had been ruined by loans made to the Con- 
federate government. Their stock had been considered the 
safest in the market, and the property of widows and orphans 
was largely invested in it. The estates of the stockholders, 
liable for double the amount of the bills issued, were insuf- 
ficient to redeem them. In January, 1866, two National 
Banks had been organized in the State. 

The aooreimte of debts, old and new, in South Carolina, 
were estimated to be worth not more than twenty-five per 
cent, of their par value. 

South Carolina had suffered more than any other State by 
the sale of lands for United States taxes, during the war. I 
heard of one estate, worth fifteen thousand dollars, Avhicli had 
been sold for three hundred dollars. Governor Orr instanced 
another, the market value of which was twenty-four thousand 
dollars, which was bought in by the government for eighty 
dollars. Such was the fate of abandoned coast lands held by 
the United States forces. Their owners, absent in the inte- 
rior, were in most instances ignorant even of the proceedings 
by which their estates were sacrificed. In this way, accord- 
ing to the governor, " the entire parish of St. Helena, and a 
portion of St. Luke's, have completely changed hands, and 
passed either into the possession of the government, or of 
third parties." 

The prevalence of crime in remote districts was alarming. 
I was assured by General Sickles that the perpetrators were in 
most cases outlaws from other States, to which they dared not 
return. Union soldiers and negroes were their favorite vic- 
tims. They rode in armed bands through the country, defying 
the military authorities. The people would not inform against 
them for fear of their vengeance. Many robberies and mur- 
ders of soldiers and freedmen, however, were unmistakably 
committed by citizens. 

Much ill-feeling had been kept alive by United States treas- 
ury agents, searching the country for Confederate cotton and 



568 NOTES ON SOUTH CAROLINA. 

branded mules and horses. Many of these agents, as far as I 
could learn, both in this and in other States, were mere rogues 
and fortune-hunters. They would propose to seize a man's 
property in the name of the United States, but abandon the 
claim on the payment of heavy bribes, which of course went 
into their own pockets. Sometimes, haA'ing seized " C. S. A." 
cotton, they would have the marks on the bales changed, get 
some man to claim it, and divide with him the profits. Such 
practices had a pernicious effect, engendering a contempt for 
the government, and a murderous ill-will which too commonly 
vented itself upon soldiers and negroes. 

I found in South Carolina a more virulent animosity existing 
in the minds of the common people, against the government 
and people of the North, than in any other State I visited. 
Only in South Carolina was I treated with gross personal in- 
sults on account of my Northern origin. 

There is notwithstanding in this State a class of men whom 
I remember with admiration for their courteous hospitality and 
liberal views. Instead of insulting and i-epelling Northern 
men, they invite them, and seem eager to learn of them the 
secret of Northern enterprise and prosperity. Their ideas, 
although not those of New-England radicals, are hopeful and 
progressive. Considering that they have advanced from the 
Southern side of the national question, their position is notable 
and praiseworthy. This class is small, but it possesses a vital 
energy of which great results may be predicted. From it the 
freedmen have much to hope and little to fear. It is not so 
far in advance of the people that it cannot lead them ; nor so 
far behind the most advanced sentiment of the times that we 
may not expect them soon to come up to it. 

Foremost among this class is Governor Orr, — almost the 
only man in South Carolina who seemed to me prepared to 
consider dispassionately the subject of universal suffrage. The 
color of the negro's skin, he said, was no good reason for keep- 
ins the ballot out of his hand. " In this country, suffrage is 
progressive ; and when the colored people are prepared for it, 
they will have it." A large proportion of the freedmen, he 



GOVERNOR ORR'S CARPENTER. 669 

felt sure, avouIcI become industrious and res])octal)lc citizens. 
As an instance of the capacity and fidelity shown by many of 
their race, he gave an account of one of his own slaves. 

" He is by trade a carpenter, and a first-class workman. 
He was the son of his original owner, who emancipated him 
by his will, and gave him, with his liberty, a mule, a saddle, a 
set of tools, and some money. One of the heirs of the estate 
was the executor of the will. Finding Henry a very valuable 
man, he looked for some legal flaw by which the will could be 
broken. There was a law of South Carolina designed to pre- 
vent slave-owners from emancipating old worn-out servants, 
and thus converting them into public paupers. It .required 
the master, before freeing his servant, to make a certain state- 
ment, uiuler oath, that the said servant Avas capable of self- 
support. This formality had been neglected in Henry's case ; 
and the court decided that he must remain a slave. When 
the fact was made known to him, he said to the executor, ' If 
the court has so decided, I suppose I must abide by the decis- 
ion. It is unjust, but I submit to it. But I will never serve 
you. I have lost all confidence in you, and all respect for you ; 
and the best thing you can do is to sell me.' The executor 
was so impressed by this declaration, that he told him to go 
and choose his future master. He came to me, and entreated 
me to buy him. I finally consented to do so, and paid his 
price, — fifteen hundred dollars. 

" He lived as my slave until the close of the war ; and all 
the time his patience under his great wrong was wonderful. 
He never complained ; and he served me with the most 
conscientious fidelity. By overwork, he earned two hundred 
dollars a year, which he spent upon his family. I had bought 
him a set of tools worth five hundred dollars, and scientific 
books worth one hundred, which I gave him when we parted. 
He has wit and education enough to understand the books, I 
assure you. He is now doing business in Columbia. He 
might become wealthy, but he is too generous. He will not 
spend his earnings foolishly, but he will share whatever he 
has with his people. If I w\as in want, he would give me his 
last dollar." 



570 NOTES ON SOUTH CAEOLINA. 

There were in January fifty freeclmen's schools in operation 
in South Carohna, with one hundred and twenty teachers, and 
ten thousand pupils. The New-England Freedmen's Aid, and 
the National Freedmen's Association, had each about fifty 
teachers in the field. The Boston teachers in Charleston get 
forty-five dollars a month, and pay their own expenses. At 
other points, where expenses are less, they get thirty-five dol- 
lars. The average yearly cost of each teacher to the associa- 
tions is six hundred dollars. 

The American Missionary Association, the Pennsylvania 
Freedmen's Relief, and the Friends' Freedmen's Association, 
had also. teachers in the field. 

The State superintendent of freedmen's schools spoke in high 
praise of the school in the Normal school building, at Charles- 
ton. The principal was a colored man who had been educated 
at his own expense at the University of Glasgow. Another 
teacher Mas a colored girl, who had taught a free colored school 
in Charleston during the war, — paying half her income to a 
white woman for sittino; and sewing in the school-room, and 
appearing as the teacher, Avhen it was visited by the police. 
" This woman's pupils," said Mr. Tomlinson, " draw maps, 
and do everything white girls of twelve and sixteen years do, 
in ordinary advanced schools." General Richardson of the 
Eastern District, had set a number of old soldiers, unfit for 
military duty, to teaching the freedmen. 

There was not much active opposition shown to the schools 
in the State, nor yet much encouragement. Only here and 
there an enlightened planter saw the necessity of education for 
the negroes, and favored it. 



DISSECTII^G THE YANKEES. 571 



CHAPTER LXXIX. 

THE RIDE TO WINNSBORO'. 

For a distance of thirty miles nortli of Columbia, I had an 
mteresting experience of staging over that portion of the Char- 
lotte and South Carolina Railroad destroyed by Sherman. 
Much of the Avay the stage route ran beside or near the track. 
Gangs of laborers were engaged in putting down new ties and 
rails, but most of the old iron lay where our boys left it. 

It was the Seventeenth Corps that did this little job, and it 
did it well.. It was curious to note the different styles of the 
destroying parties. The point where one detail appeared to 
have left off and another to have begun was generally unmis- 
takable. For a mile or two you would see nothing but hair- 
pins, and bars wound around telegraph posts and trees. Then 
you would have corkscrews and twists for about the same dis- 
tance. Then came a party that gave each heated rail one 
sharp Avrench in the middle, and left it perhaps nearly straight, 
but facing both ways. Here was a plain business method, and 
there a fantastic style, which showed that its authors took a 
wild delight in their work. 

Early in the morning I rode with the driver, in the hope of 
learning something of him with regard to the country. But 
he proved to be a refugee from East Tennessee, where he said 
a rope-noose was waiting for him. An active Rebel, he had 
been guilty of some offences which the Union men there could 
not forgive. 

Finding him as ignorant of the country as myself, I, got 
down, and took a seat inside the coach. Within, an animated 
political discussion was at its height. Two South Carolinians 
and a planter from Arkansas were dissecting the Yankees in 
liveliest fashion ; while a bitter South Carolina lady and a 
good-natured Virginian occasionally put in a word. 



572 THE KIDE TO WINNSBORO'. 

It was some time before I was recognized as a representa- 
tive of all that was mean and criminal in the world. At length 
something I said seemed to excite suspicion ; and the Arkan- 
san wrote something on a card, which was passed to every 
one of the company except me. An alarming hush of several 
minutes ensued. It was as if a skeleton had appeared at a ban- 
quet. The abuse of the Yankees was the banquet ; and I was 
perfectly well aware that I was the skeleton. At last the 
awful silence was broken by the Arkansan. 

" What is thought of negro suffrage at the North ? " 

The question was addressed to me. I replied that opinion 
was divided on that subject ; but that many people believed 
some such security Avas necessary for the freedmen's rights. 
" They do not think it quite safe," I said, " to leave him with- 
out any voice in making the laws by which he is to be gov- 
erned, — subject entirely to the legislation of a class that cannot 
forget that he was born a slave." 

" I believe," said one of the South Carolinians, " all that is 
owing to the lies of the newspaper correspondents travelling 
through the South, and writing home whatever they think 
will injure us. I wish every one of 'em was killed off. If it 
was n't for them, we should be left to attend to our own busi- 
ness, instead of being ridden to death by our Yankee masters. 
It is n't fair to take solitary instances reported by them, as 
representing the condition of the niggers and the disposition 
of the whites. Some impudent darkey, who deserves it, gets 
a knock on the head, or a white man speaks his mind rather 
too freely to some Yankee who has purposely provoked him, 
and a long newspaper story is made out of it, showing that 
every nigger in the South is in danger of being killed, and 
every white man is disloyal." 

"Certainly," I ^aid, "isolated cases do not represent a 
whole people. But the acts of a legislative body may be 
supposed to represent the spirit and wishes of its constituents. 
We consider the negro code enacted by your special legisla- 
ture simply abominable. It is enough of itself to show that 
you are not quite ready to do the freedmen justice. Your 



SOUTH CAROLIXA AND MASSACHUSETTS. 573 

present governor appears to be of tlie same opinion, judged 
by his veto of the act to amend the patrol laws, and his excel- 
lent advice to your representatives Avho passed it. You are 
whollv mistaken, my friend, in supposing that the people of 
the North wish anything of you that is unnecessary, unreason- 
able, or unjust. They may be mistaken with regard to what 
is necessary, but they are honest in their intentions." 

" All we want," said the South Carolinian, " is that our 
Yankee rulers should give us the same privileges with regard 
to the control of labor which they themselves have." 

" Very well ; what privileges have they which you have 
not?" 

" In Massachusetts, a laborer is obliged by law to make a 
contract for a year. If he leaves his employer without his 
consent, or before the term of his contract expires, he can be 
put in jail. And if another man hires him, he can be fined. 
It is not lawful there to hire a laborer who does not bring a 
certificate from his last employer. All we want is the same 
or a similar code of laws here." 

" My dear sir," said I, " all any man could wish is that you 
might have just such laws here as they have in Massachu- 
setts. But with regard to the code you speak of, it does not 
exist there, and it does not exist in any Northern State with 
which I am acquainted. There is nothing like it anywhere." 

" How do you manage without such laWs ? How can you 
get work out of a man unless you compel him in some way ? " 

" Natural laws compel him ; we need no othez's. A man 
must work if he would eat. A faithful laborer is soon discov- 
ered, and he commands the best Avages. An idle fellow is 
detected quite as soon ; and if he will not do the work he has 
agreed to do, he is discharged. Thus the system regulates 
itself" 

" You can't do that way with niggers." 

" Have you ever tried ? Have you ever called your freed- 
men together and explained to them their new condition ? A 
planter I saw in Alabama told me how he managed this thing. 
He said to his people, ' If you do well, I shall want you an- 



574 THE RIDE TO WINNSBORO'. 

otlier year. The man who does best will be worth the most 
to me. But if you are lazy and unfaithful, I shall dismiss you 
when your contracts are ended, and hire better men. Do you 
know why some overseers are always wandering about in 
search of a situation ? ' ' Because nobody wants 'em,' said 
the negroes. ' Why not ? ' ' Because they a'n't good for 
their business.' ' Why did I keep John Bird only one year ? ' 
' Because, soon as your back was turned, he slipped off to a 
grocery, or went a-fishing.' ' And why did I keep William 
Hooker eight years, and increase his salary every year?' 
' Because he stuck by and always looked after your interest.' 
' Now,' said the planter, ' you are in the condition of these 
overseers. You can always have good situations, and your 
prospects will be continually improving, if you do well. Or 
you may soon be going about the country with bundles on 
your backs, miserable low-down niggers that nobody will hire.' 
In this way he instructed and encouraged the freedmen ; and 
he assured me they were working better than ever. But by 
your serf-codes you would crush all hope and manhood out of 
them." 

" Well, there may be something in all that. I can't say, 
for I never thought of trying but one way with a nigger. But 
nio-o-er suffrao-e the South a'n't iroino; to stand anyhow. We 've 
already got a class of voters that 's enough to corrupt the pol- 
itics of any country. I used to think the nigger Avas the 
meanest of God's creatures. But I 've found a meaner brute 
than he; and that 's the low-down white man. If a respect- 
able man hires a nigger for wages, one of those low-down 
cusses will offer him twice as much, to get him away. They 
want him to prowl for them. A heap of these no-account 
whites are getting rich, stealing cotton ; they 're too lazy or 
cowardly to do it themselves, so they get the niggers to do it 
for 'em. These very men hold the balance of political power 
in this district. They '11 vote for the man who gives 'em the 
most whiskey. Just before the war, at an election in Colum- 
bia, over a hundred sand-hillers sold their votes beforehand, 
and were })ut into jail till the polls opened, and then marched 
out to vote." 



SPIRIT OF THE TEOPLE. 575 

" By what right were they put in jail ? " 
" It was in the bargain. They knew they could n't bo 
trusted not to sell their votes to the next man that offered 
more whiskey, and they like going to jail well enough, if they 
can go drunk. Make the niggers voters, and you '11 have just 
such another class to be bought up with whiskey." 

" It seems to me more reasonable," I replied, " to suppose 
that the franchise will elevate the negro ; and by elevating 
him you will elevate the white man who has been degraded 
by the negro's degradation. Some of both races will no doubt 
be found willing to sell their votes, as well as their souls, for 
whiskey ; but that is no more a reason why all blacks should 
be deprived of the right of suffi-age, than that all whites 
should be." 

This is a specimen of the talk that was kept up during the 
day. 

We stopped to dine at a house, where I was told by a young 
lady that the Yankees were the greatest set of rogues, and 
that some passed there every day. 

" Is it possible ! " I said. " Are you not afraid of them ? " 
" I have nothing whatever to do with them. I should be 
ashamed to be seen talking with one." 

" Then be careful that no one sees you now." 
" You are not a Yankee ! " she exclaimed. 
" Yes," said I, " I am one of that set of rogues." 
" I am very sorry to hear it, for I had formed a more favor- 
able opinion of you." 

Only the good-natured Virginian went in with me to the 
dining-room. The lady of the house, sitting at the table with 
us, soon began to talk about the Yankees. " They often dine 
here," she said. " But I have nothing to say to them. As 
soon as I know who they are, I go out of the room." She 
was very sociable ; and when I informed her at parting that 
she had been entertaining a Yankee, she appeared confused 
and incredulous. 

Such was the spirit commonly shown by the luiddle class of 
South Carolinians. But I remember some marked exceptions. 



576 THE RIDE TO WINXSBORO'. 

Late in the afternoon we stopped at a })lace wliicli a sturdy old 
farmer said was Ridgeway before Sherman came there : " I 
don't know what you 'd call it now." 

" If the devil don't get old Sherman," said one of my trav- 
elling companions, " there a'n't no use having a devil." 

" We did it oursclve-^," said the farmer. " We druv the 
nail and the Yankees clinched it." 

In the coach, the South Carolinians had just been denying 
that any outrages were committed on the freedmen in that 
part of the country. So I asked this man if he had heard of 
any such. 

" Heard of 'em ? I hear of 'em every day. I 'm going to 
Columbia to-night to attend the trial of one of my neighbors 
for shooting a negro woman." 

" You must expect such things to happen when the niggers 
are impudent," observed one of my companions. 

" The niggers a'n't to blame," said the farmer. " They 're 
never impudent, unless they 're trifled with or imposed on. 
Only two days ago a nigger was walking along this road, as 
peaceably as any man you ever saw. He met a white man 
right here, who asked him who he belonged to. ' I don't 
belong to anybody now,' he says ; ' I 'm a free man.' ' Sass 
me ? you black devil ! ' says the white fellow ; and he pitched 
into him, and cut him in four or five places with his knife. I 
heard and saw the whole of it, and I say the nigger was re- 
spectful, and that the white fellow Avas the only one to blame." 

" What became of the negro ? " 

" I don't know ; he went off to some of his people." 

" And what was done with the white man ? " 

" Nothing. There 's nobody to do anything in such cases, 
unless the nigger goes all the way to the Freedmen's Bureau 
and makes a complaint. Then there 's little chance of getting 
the fellow that cut him." 

Three miles further on, we reached a point to which the 
railroad had been repaired, and took the cars for Winnsboro'. 
While we were waiting by moonlight in the shelterless and 
stumpy camping-ground which served as a station, one of my 



SHERMAN'S "BUMMERS." '677 

South Carolina friends said to me : " We may as well tell the 
whole truth as half. The Yankees treated us mighty badly ; 
but a heap of our own people followed in their track and robbed 
on their credit." 

On the train I found a hotel-keeper from Wiunsboro' drum- 
ming for customers. He was abusing the Yankees with great 
violence and passion until he found that I was one. After that 
he kept remarkably quiet, and even apologized to me for his 
remarks, until I told him I had concluded to go to the house 
of a rival runner. Thereupon he broke forth again. 

" They 've left me one inestimable privilege — to hate 'em. 
I git up at half-past four in the morning, and sit up till twelve 
at night, to hate 'em. Talk about Union ! They had no object 
in coming down here, but just to steal. I 'm like a whipped 
cur ; I have to cave in ; but that don't say I shall love 'em. 
I owned my own house, my own servants, my own garden, and 
in one night they reduced me to poverty. My house was near 
the State House in Columbia. It was occupied by HoAvard's 
head-quarters. When they left, they just poured camphene 
over the beds, set 'em afire, locked up the house, and threw 
away the key. That was after the burning of the town, and 
that 's what made it so hard. Some one had told 'em I was 
one of the worst Rebels in the world, and that 's the only truth 
I reckon, that was told. I brought up seven boys, and what 
they had n't killed was fighting against 'em then. Now I 
have to keep a boarding-house in Wiunsboro' to support my 
wife and children." 

At Wiunsboro' I passed the night. A portion of that town 
also had been destroyed ; and there too Sherman's " bum- 
mers " were said to have behaved very naughtily. For in- 
stance : " When the Episcopal church was burning, they took 
out the melodeon, and played the devil's tunes on it till the 
house was well burned down ; then they threw on the melo- 
deon." 

37 



578 A GLIMPSE OF THE OLD NORTH STATE. 



CHAPTER LXXX. 

A GLBIPSE OF THE OLD NORTH STATE. 

The next day I entered North Carolina. 

Almost immediately on crossing the State line, a change of 

scene was per/:eptible. The natural features of the country 

improved; the appearance of its farms improved still more. 

North Carolina farmers use manures, and work with their own 

hands. They treat the soil more generously than their South 

Carolina neighbors, and it repays them. 

That night I passed at the house of a Connecticut man, in 

a country^village, — a warm and comfortable New-England 

home transported to a southern community, — and went on 

tlie next day to Raleigh. 

At Raleigh I found the Legislature, — composed mostly of 
a respectable and worthy-looking yeomanry — battling over 
the question of negro testimony in the civil courts ; spending 
day after day in the discussion of a subject which could be 
settled in only one way, and which ought to have been settled 
at once. One member remarked outside: "I'll never vote 
for that bill miless driven to it by the bayonet." ^Another 
said : " I 'm opposed to giving niggers any privileges." These 
men represent a large class of North Carolina farmers ; but 
fortunately there is another class of more progressive and lib- 
eral ideas, which are sure at last to prevail. 

- The business of Raleigh was dull, the money in the country 
being exhausted. A few Northern men, who had gone into 

■ trade there, were discouraged, and anxious to get away. 

" So great is the impoverishment of our State," Governor 
Worth Taid to me, " that a tax of any considerable amount 
would bring real estate at once into the market." Among 
other causes, the repudiation of the entire State debt con- 



580 A GLIMPSE OF THE OLD NORTH STATE. 

tracted during the war, had contributed to destroy tlie re- 
sources of the people. The middhng and pooi-er classes had 
invested nearly all their surplus means in State treasury notes, 
which became worthless. The cause of education suflFered 
with everything else. The University of North Carolina had 
all its funds invested in the banks ; " Repudiation killed the 
banks," said Governor Worth, " and the banks killed the Uni- 
versity." A million dollars of the common-school fund went 
the same way. 

North Carolina, like several of her Southern sisters-, had 
passed a stay law, which threatened a serious injury to her 
interests. By preventing the collection of debts, it destroyed 
credit, of which the people, in their present condition, stand 
so much in need. Although unconstitutional and impolitic, so 
great was the popularity of this law, that the ablest politicians 
feared to make an effort for its repeal. 

By one of its provisions, a mortgage inures to the benefit of 
all the creditors of the mortgagor. Many large estates were, 
necessarily, to be broken up ; and the best thing that could 
happen, for them and for the community, was, that they should 
fall into the hands of small farmers ; but, in consequence of 
this curious law, the owners would not sell to these men, ex- 
cept for cash, which was lacking. 

These Southern stay laws, I may here mention, do not 
touch the rights of a Northern creditor, Avho can bring his suit 
in United States courts, which ignore them. 

The Northern men in the State were mostly settled on cot- 
ton plantations in the eastern counties. There were also many 
enfi-aged in the tm-pentine and lumber business in the south- 
ern part, and along the coast. In the central and western 
parts there were almost none. 

Of the extensive rice plantations of the tide-water region, 
but few were in operation, owing to the great ovitlay of capital 
necessary to carry them on. To seed them alone involves an 
expense of ten dollars an acre. Yet, from the representations 
of Northern men who had gone to rice planting, I am satisfied 
that here is an opening for very profitable investments. 



GOVERNOR WORTH OK SHERI^IAN'S " BUMMERS." 581 

The small farmers of North Carolina ai^ a plain, old-fash- 
ioned, upright, ignorant class of men. Mr. Best, Secretary of 
State, told me that forty-five per cent, of those who took the 
oath of allegiance in Green Comity, where he administered it, 
made their marks. " Yet many of these are men of as strong 
sense as any in the State," he added ; " and they were gener- 
ally Union men." 

The freedmen throughout the central and northern part of 
the State, had very generally made contracts, and were at 
work. In the southern part, fewer contracts had been made, 
in consequence of the inability of the large planters to pay 
promptly. " When paid promptly, the freedmen are every- 
where working well," I was assured by the officers of the 
Bureau. The rate of wages varied from five to ten dollars 
a month. 

There were in the State one hundred teachers, supplied by 
tlie benevolent societies of the North. Their schools, scat- 
tered throughout the State, were attended by eight thousand 
five hundred colored pupils. 

Cases of robberies, frauds, assaults, and even murders, in 
which white persons were the agents and freed people the 
sufferers, had been so numerous, according to the State Com- 
missioner, " that no record of them could be kept ; one oflScer 
reporting that he had heard and disposed of as many as a 
hundred and eighty complaints in one day." Owing to the 
efforts of the Bureau, however, the number was fast decreas- 
ing. 

Fi'om Governor Worth, I received a rather sorry account 
of the doings of Sherman's " bummers " in this State. Even 
after the pacification they continued their lawless marauding. 
" They visited ni}' place, near Raleigh,^ and drove off a fine 
flock of ewes and lambs. I was State Treasurer at the time, 
and having to go away on public business, I gave my negroes 
tlieir bacon, which they hid behind the ceiling of the house. 
The Yankees came, and held an axe over the head of one of 
tlie negroes, and^ by threats compelled him to tell where it 
was. They tor^off the ceUing, and stole all the bacon. They 



682 A GLIMPSE OF THE OLD J^TORTH STATE. 

took all my cows. *Three cows afterwards came back ; but they 
recently disappeared again, and I found them in the possession 
of a man who says he bought them of these bummers. I had 
a grindstone, and as they could n't carry it off, they smashed 
it. There was on my place a poor, old, blind negro woman, 
— the last creature in the world against Avhom I should sup- 
pose any person would have wished to commit a wrong. She 
had a new dress ; and they stole even that. 

" I was known as a peace man," said the Governor, " and for 
that reason I did not suffer as heavily as my neighbors." He 
gave this testimony with regard to that class which served, 
but did not honor, our cause : " Of all the malignant wretches 
that ever cursed the earth, the hangers-on of Sherman's army 
were the worst ; " adding : " It can't be expected that the 
people should love a government that has subjugated them in 
this way." 



CONDITION OF THE SOUTH. 583 



CHAPTER LXXXI. 

CONCLUSIONS. • 

I MADE but a brief stay in Nortli Carolina, but passed on 
homeward, and reached the beautiful snowy hills and frosted 
forests of New England early in February. 

It now only remains for me to sum up briefly my answers 
to certain questions which arc constantly put to me, regarding 
Southern emigration, the loyalty of the people, and the future 
of the country. 

The South is in the condition of a man recovering from a 
dangerous malady : the crisis is past, appetite is boundless, and 
only sustenance and pvu'ifying air are needed to bring health 
and life in fresh waves. The exhausted country calls for sup- 
plies. It has been drained of its wealth, and of its young men. 
Capital is eagerly welcomed and absorbed. Labor is also 
needed. There is much shallow talk about getting rid of the 
negroes, and of filling their places with foreigners. But war 
and disease have already removed more of the colored race 
than can be well s^mred ; and I am confident that, for the next 
five or ten years, leaving the blacks where they are, the strong- 
est tide of emigration that can be poured into the country will 
be insufficient to meet the increasing demand for labor. 

Northern enterprise, emancipation, improved modes of cul- 
ture, and the high prices of cotton, rice, sugar, and tobacco, 
cannot fail to bring about this result. The cotton crop, if no 
accident happens to it, will this year reach, I am well satisfied, 
not less than two million bales, and bring something like two 
hundred and fifty miUion dollars, — as much as the five million 
bales of 1859 produced. Next year it will approximate to its 
old average standard in bulk, and greatly exceed it in value ; 
and the year after we shall have the largest cotton crop ever 



684 CONCLUSIONS. 

known. Meanwhile the culture of rice and sugar will have 
folly revived, and become enormously profitable. Nor will 
planting alone flourish. Burned cities and plantation-buildings 
must be restored, new towns and villages will spring up, old 
losses must be repaired, and a thousand new wants supplied. 
Trade, manufactures, the mechanic arts, all are invited to share 
in this teeming activity. 

Particular location the emigrant must select for himself, 
according to his own judgment, tastes, and means. Just now 
I should not advise Northern men to settle far back from the 
main routes of travel, unless they go in communities, purchas- 
ing and dividing large plantations, and forming societies inde- 
pendent of any hostile sentiment that may be shown by the 
native inhabitants. But I trust that in a year or two all dan- 
ger of discomfort or disturbance arising from this source will 
have mostly passed by. 

The loyalty of the people is generally of a negative sort : 
it is simply disloyalty subdued. They submit to the power 
which has mastered them, but they do not love it ; nor is it 
reasonable to expect that they should. Many of them lately 
in rebellion, are, I think, honestly convinced that secession was 
a great mistake, and that the preservation of the Union, even 
with the loss of slavery, is better for them than any such sepa- 
rate government as that of which tliey had a bitter taste. Yet 
they do not feel much affection for the hand which corrected 
their error. They acquiesce quietly in what cannot be helped, 
and sincerely desire to make the best of their altered circum- 
stances. 

There is another class which would still be glad to dismem- . 
ber the country, and whose hatred of the government is radi- 
cal and intense. But this class is small. 

The poor whites may be divided into three classes : those 
who, to their hatred of the negro, join a hatred of the govern- 
ment that has set him free ; those who associate with the negro, 
and care nothing for any government ; and those who, cherish- 
ing more or less Union sentiment, rejoice to see the old aris- 
tocracy overthrown. 



THE DANGER. 585 

Except in certain localities, like East Tennessee, positive 
unconditional Union men are an exceedingly small minority. 
But they are a leaven which, properly encouraged, shoiild 
leaven the whole lump of Southern society. Upon the close 
of hostiUties, these men who, for near five years suffered unre- 
lenting persecution, rose temporarily to a position of influence 
which their conduct had earned. Secession saw with dismay 
that to this class the first place in the future government of the 
country rightfully belonged. Their old neighbors, who had 
so long done evil to them continually, or given them only dark 
looks, now shrank sullenly out of their sight, or openly courted 
their smiles. A professed Union sentiment blossomed every- 
where ; lives, that had all along been thistles, now bore a 
plentiful harvest of figs. This was a hopeful state of things. 
It is better, as an example to a community, thijt goodness 
should receive insincere homage, than none at all ; and that 
men should assume a virtue if they have it not. But as soon 
as it was seen that the muttering thunder-cloud of retribution 
was passing by with nothing but sound, and that loyal men 
were not to have the first, nor even the second or tliird or 
fourth place, in the government of the lately rebellious States, 
they sank to their former position. What is needed now is to 
cause this class, and the principles they represent, to be per- 
manently respected. 

The mere utterance of disloyal sentiments need not alarm 
any one. It is often sincere ; but it is sometimes mere cant, 
easily kept in vogue, by newspapers and politicians, among a 
people who delight in vehement and minatory talk, for the' 
mere talk's sake. 

Of another armed rebellion not the least apprehension need 
be entertained. The South has had enough of war for a long 
time to come ; it has supped full of horrors. The habiliments 
of mourning, which one sees everywhere in its towns and 
dties, will cast their dark shadow upon any future attempt at 
secession, long after they have been put away in the silent' 
wardrobes of tljc past. Only in the case of a foreign war 
might we expect to see a party of malignant malcontents go 



586 . CONCLUSIONS. 

over to the side of the enemy. They would doubtless endeavor 
to drag their States with them, but they would not succeed. 
Fortunately those who are still so anxious to see the old issue 
fought out, are not themselves fighting men, and are danger- 
ous only with their tongues. 

Of unarmed rebellion, of continued sectional strife, stirred 
up by Southern politicians, there exists very great danger. 
Their aims are distinct, and they command the sympathy of 
the Southern people. To obtain the exclusive control of the 
freedmen, and to make such laws for them as shall embody the 
prejudices of a late slave-holding society ; to govern not only 
their own States, but to regain their forfeited leadership in the 
affairs of the nation ; to effect the repudiation of the national 
debt, or to get the Confederate debt and the Rebel State debts 
assumed by the whole country ; to secure payment for their 
slaves, and for all injuries and losses occasioned by the war ; 
these are among the chief designs of a class who will pursue 
them with what recklessness and persistency we know. 

How to prevent them from agitating the nation in the future 
as in the past, and from destroying its prosperity, is become 
the most serious of questions. If you succeed in capturing an 
antagonist who has made a murderous assault upon you, com- 
mon sense, and a regard for your own safety and the peace of 
society, require at least that his weapons, or the power of using 
them, should be taken from him. These perilous schemes 
are the present weapons of the nation's conquered enemy ; and 
does not prudent statesmanship demand that they should be 
laid forever at rest before he walks again at large in the pride 
of his power ? 

All that just and good men can ask, is this security. Vin- 
dictiveness, or a wish to hold the rebellious States under an 
iron rule, should have no place in our hearts. But if the blood 
of our brothers was shed in a righteous cause, — if for four 
years we poured out lives and treasures to purchase a reality, 
'and no mere mockery and shadow, — let us honor our brothers 
and the cause by seeing that reality established. If treason 
is a crime, surely it can receive no more fitting or merciful 



SOUTHERN PLAN OF RECONSTRUCTION. 587 

punishment than to be deprived of its power to do more mis- 
chief. Let peace, founded upon true principles, be tlie only 
retribution we demand. Let justice be our vengeance. 

It was my original intention to speak of the various schemes 
of reconstruction claiming the consideration of the country. 
But they have become too numerous, and are generally too 
well known, to be detailed here. The Southern plan is sim- 
ple ; it is this : that the States, lately so eager to destroy the 
Union, arc now entitled to all their former rights and privi- 
leges in that Union. Their haste to withdraw their represen- 
tatives from Congress, is more than equalled by their anxiety 
to get them back in their seats. They consider it hard that, 
at the end of the most stupendous rebellion and the bloodiest 
civil war that ever shook the planet, they cannot quietly slip 
back in their places, and, the sword having failed, take up 
once more the sceptre of political power they so rashly flung 
■down. Often, in conversation with candid Southern men, 
impatient for this result, I was able to convince them that it 
was hardly to be expected, that the government, emergino- 
victorious from the dust of such a struggle, and finding its 
foot on that sceptre, should take it off with very great alacritv. 
And they were forced to acknowledge that, had the South 
proved victorious, its enemies would not have escaped so 
easily. 

This plan does not tolerate the impediment of any Con- 
gressional test oath. When I said to my Southern friends 
that I should be glad to see those representatives, who could 
take the test oath, admitted to Congress, this was the usual 
reply : — 

" We would not vote for such men. We had rather have 
no representatives at all. We want representatives to rejyre- 
sent us, and no man represents us who can take your test oath. 
We are Rebels, if you choose to call us so, and only a good 
Rebel can properly represent us." 

This is the strongest ax'gument I have heard against the 
admission of loyal Southern members to Congress. And if 
the white masses of the lately rebellious States are alone, and 



588 CONCLUSIONS. 

indiscriminately, to be recognized us the people of those States, 
it is certainly a valid argument. 

" It is enough," they maintained, " that a representative in 
Congress takes the ordinary oath to sui)port the government ; 
that is a sufficient test of his loyalty ; " — forgetting that, at 
the outbreak of the rebellion, this proved no test at all. 

Such is the Southern plan of reconstruction. Opposed to 
it is the plan on which I believe a majority of the people of 
the loyal States are agreed, namely, that certain guaranties 
of future national tranquillity shoidd be required of those who 
have caused so great a national convulsion. But as to what 
those guaranties should be, 02:)inions are divided, and a hun- 
dred conflicting measures are proposed for the settlement of 
the difficulty. 

For my own part, I see but one plain rule by which our 
troubles can be finally and satisfactorily adjusted ; and that is, 
the enactment of simple justice for all men. Anything that 
falls short of this fells short of the solution of the problem. 

The " Civil Rights Bill," — enacted since the greater por- 
tion of these pages were written, — is a step in the direction 
in which this country is inevitably moving. The principles of 
the Declaration, of Independence, supposed to be our starting- 
point in history, are in reality the goal towards which we 
are tending. Far in advance of our actual civilization, the 
pioneers of the Republic set up those shining pillars. Not 
until all men are equal before the law, and none is hindered 
from rising or from sinking by any impediment which does 
not exist in his own constitution and private circumstances, 
will that goal be reached. 

Soon or late the next step is surely coming. That step 
is universal suffi'agc. It may be wise to make some moral or 
intellectual qualification a test of a man's fitness for the fran- 
chise ; but anything which does not apply alike to all classes, 
aud which all are not invited to attain, is inconsistent with the 
spirit of American nationality. 

But wnll the Southern people ever submit to negro suffi-age ? 
Xhey will submit to it quite as willingly as they submitted tp 



l^EGRO SUFFRAGE. 689 

negi'o emancipation. They fought against that as long as any 
power of resistance was in them ; then they accepted it ; tliey 
are now becoming reconciled to it ; and soon they will rejoice 
over it. Such is always the history of progressive ideas. The 
first advance is oi)posed with all the miglit of the world until 
its triumph is achieved ; then the world says, " Very well," 
and employs all its arts and energies to defeat the next move- 
ment, which triumphs and is finally welcomed in its turn. 

At the close of the war, the South was ready to accept any 
terms which the victorious government might have seen fit to 
enforce. The ground was thoroughly broken ; it was fresh 
from the harrow ; and then was the time for the sowing of 
the new seed, before delay had given encouragement and 
opportunity to the old rank weeds. The States had practically 
dissolved their relations to the general government. Their 
chief men were traitors, their governors and legislators were 
entitled to no recognition, and a new class of free citizens, 
composing near half the population, had been created. If, in 
these changed circumstances, all the people of those States had 
been called upon to unite in restoring their respective govern- 
ments, and their relations to the general government, we 
should have had a simple and easy solution of the main ques- 
tion at issue. Our allies on the battle-field would have become 
our allies at the ballot-box, and by doing justice to them we 
should have gained security for ourselves. 

But are the lately emancipated blacks prepared for the 
franchise ? They are, by all moral and intellectual qualifica- 
tions, as well prepared for it as the mass of poor whites in the 
South. Although ignorant, they possess, as has been said, a 
strong instinct which stands them in the place of actual 
knowledge. That instinct inspires them with loyalty to the 
government, and it will never permit them to vote so unwisely 
and mischievously as the white people of the South voted in 
the days of secession. Moreover, there are among them men 
of fine intelligence and leading influence, by whom, and not 
by their old masters, as has been claimed, they will be in- 
structed in their duty at the polls. And this fact is most 



590 CONCLUSIONS. '-/ J^;. 

certain, — that tliey are far better prepared to have a hand 
in making the laws by which they are to be governed, than 
tlie whites are to make those laws for them. 

How this step is now to be brought about, is not easy to 
determine ; and it may not be brought about for some time 
to come. In the mean while it is neither wise nor just to 
allow the representation of the Southern States in Congress 
to be increased by the emancipation of a race that has no 
voice in that representation ; and some constitutional remedy 
agairvst tliis evil is required. And in the mean while the pro- 
tection of the government must be continued to the race to 
which its faith is pledged. Let us hope not long. 

The present high price of cotton, and the extraordinary 
demand for labor, seem providential circumstances, designed 
to teacli both races a great lesson. The freedmen are fast 
learning the responsibilities of their new situation, and gaining 
a position from which they cannot easily be displaced. Their 
eagerness to acquire knowledge is a bright sign of hope for 
tlieir future. By degrees the dominant class must learn to 
respect those- who, as chattels, could only be despised. Re- 
spect for labor rises with the condition of the laborer. The 
whites of the South are not by choice ignorant or xuijust, but 
circumstances have made them so. Teach them that the 
laborer is a man, and that labor is manly, — a truth that is 
now. dawning upon them, — and the necessity of mediation 
between the two races will no longer exist. 

Then the institutions of the South will spontaneously assim- 
ilate to our own. Then we shall have a Union of States, not 
in form only, but in spirit also. Then shall we see established 
the reality of the cause that has cost so many ]iriceless lives 
and such lavish outpouring of treasure. Tlien will disloyalty 
die of inanition, and its deeds live only in legend and in story. 
Then breaks upon America the morning glory of that future 
which shall behold it the Home of Man, and the Lawgiver 
among the nations. 



